Book #37 |
Book: Blank | Author: Zibby Owens | |
| Source: Free First Reads download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 250 | Duration: 05/04/25 – 05/06/25 (3 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Genres: fiction, humor, romance, books-about-books, chick lit | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Writer’s-blocked author devises a book with a possibly preposterous plot. 🖌6-word review: Meh. Too many non-plausible plot points. |
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| 💭Favorite quote: “Darling, it’s not a vacation with kids; it’s a trip.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: mishegaas, towheaded | |||
| Description:* A wife, mother, and frustrated writer faces an impossible deadline for turning her life around in a hilarious debut novel about family, friendship, success, and exhilarating self-(re)discovery. Pippa Jones is a 40-ish former literary sensation who fears she will be a one-hit wonder. After the follow-up book she was almost done writing had to be tossed, she couldn’t write a thing. Months of staring at a blank page made her confidence vanish like a one-night stand. When she finds out that she has only 5 days left to finish (or rather, start) or repay an advance she’s already spent, Pippa has a brilliantly original idea. Okay, fine, her twelve-year-old son came up with it as a joke, but Pippa and her teenage daughter approved. Pippa’s not only going to make a bold statement, but she’ll change the book world while she’s at it! Can she pull it off? At this point, she doesn’t have a choice. When Pippa’s publisher gets intimately involved, it unlocks a series of plot twists she never saw coming.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: This was a free First Reads book from way back in February of 2024, and I’m glad it was free. I thought the entire premise of turning in a “blank” book to meet a deadline, and purportedly to make a statement about the book publishing industry, was far-fetched at best, and that was confirmed. I found it very heavy-handed, and was unimpressed overall. In addition to that cockamamie stunt of a blank book, there were other quite improbable things that happened; for example an Instagrammer who checks out L.A. real estate incognito and then posts about it, goes to a place that turns out to be a “love nest” where her husband goes to cheat on her. What are the chances? Two things I did appreciate about the book were: 1) My pet peeve word, conspiratorial, did not appear, and 2) Instead of using the overused “palpable” or “was deafening” in this context, the author wrote: “The silence felt tangible.” I would be hard-pressed to recommend this book. | |||
See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.