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A Touch of Jen
Remy and Alicia, a couple of insecure service workers, are not particularly happy together--but they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former co-worker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe-trotting jewelry designer. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia's entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and New Age mantra they know by heart.
Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try (a little too hard) to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beach-side paradise, threatening to erupt. As small disturbances escalate into outright horror, Remy and Alicia tumble into an uncanny alternate reality, one shaped by their most unspeakable, deviant, and intoxicating fantasies. Is this what “self-actualization” looks like?
Part millennial social comedy, part psychedelic horror, and all wildly entertaining, A Touch of Jen is a sly, unflinching examination of the hidden drives that lurk just outside the frame of our carefully curated selves.
Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try (a little too hard) to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beach-side paradise, threatening to erupt. As small disturbances escalate into outright horror, Remy and Alicia tumble into an uncanny alternate reality, one shaped by their most unspeakable, deviant, and intoxicating fantasies. Is this what “self-actualization” looks like?
Part millennial social comedy, part psychedelic horror, and all wildly entertaining, A Touch of Jen is a sly, unflinching examination of the hidden drives that lurk just outside the frame of our carefully curated selves.
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 13, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,437 reviews
February 6, 2022
Enjoyed the beginning of the book when it felt more like a social commentary on parasocial relationships and the kind of miserable people who cyber-stalk and obsess over others. The latter half became too convoluted for my tastes once it dived into psychedelic horror though. It didn’t feel like it hit the nail one way or the other. Definitely avant-garde, but its results were too muddled for me personally.
August 7, 2022
Okay! No, nothing is okay! My brain swims in a ice bucket, already left my head. I’m numb! My entire vocabulary was ejected! I cannot tell how I feel about WTfreakingH I just read!
Is it sci-fi, bleakest-darkest- extra sarcastic comedy? Or is the most disturbing, obsessive love story? Is it surreal fantasy? I think it was combination of all of them!
One thing I’m sure of this book is not for everyone! I felt like I was trapped in a universe created by corporation of David Cronenberg , Terry Gilliam, Alex Garland and Charlie Kaufman.
This book contains weird, quirky characters and weirder dialogues as if they’ve been written by aliens and complex, jaw dropping situations they find themselves into. Even the characters’ reactions were not like normal people. It’s like reading a book takes place in parallel universe with bunch of batsh*t crazy people!
In the first part: we’re introduced not so lovely but absolutely “are you for real kind” of agitating characters: Remy and Alice: looking like boring couple in their thirties, service workers and only thing connects them their obsession to Remy’s former colleague Jen who pursues her dream as jewelry designer. They watch her every move on social media, dragging into her like moth to a flame. Alice acts like Jen to feel more powerful and eccentric!
Remy still thinks Jen and him are meant to be. He sees to be invited a party at Jen’s boyfriend Horus’ house ( actually it’s his mother’s house but it’s still great surf&turf place) he sees it as a sign and he takes Alice with him to spend the weekend at there.
The weekend at the house, intercourses between bunch of weird guests ( Carla and her clairvoyance skills are the winner of this incredibly strange people competition), the awkward dialogues, ultra absurd incidents they deal were the best chapter of the novel.
Because after the party time, our boring couple return back to their more boring, meaningless lives and painful, and energy sucking, slowly killing jobs but nothing is the same. Things already got of the rails and ....so many WTH moments later, the story’s direction whirl around just like a car jumps off a cliff and repeat that action over and over again.
You feel like you’re drugged and experiencing a different reality you’d never known.
The horrific, jaw dropping ending is epic final to this intriguing, confusing and unique madness!
I think if you’re open to read something you’d never read before and if you are great fans of surreal, mind blowing fantasy works, you should definitely give this book a chance.
I never read something like that! My head hurts! My grain cells need renewal but overall it was wildest craziest darkest and funniest journey I’ve never had before!
Special thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.
Is it sci-fi, bleakest-darkest- extra sarcastic comedy? Or is the most disturbing, obsessive love story? Is it surreal fantasy? I think it was combination of all of them!
One thing I’m sure of this book is not for everyone! I felt like I was trapped in a universe created by corporation of David Cronenberg , Terry Gilliam, Alex Garland and Charlie Kaufman.
This book contains weird, quirky characters and weirder dialogues as if they’ve been written by aliens and complex, jaw dropping situations they find themselves into. Even the characters’ reactions were not like normal people. It’s like reading a book takes place in parallel universe with bunch of batsh*t crazy people!
In the first part: we’re introduced not so lovely but absolutely “are you for real kind” of agitating characters: Remy and Alice: looking like boring couple in their thirties, service workers and only thing connects them their obsession to Remy’s former colleague Jen who pursues her dream as jewelry designer. They watch her every move on social media, dragging into her like moth to a flame. Alice acts like Jen to feel more powerful and eccentric!
Remy still thinks Jen and him are meant to be. He sees to be invited a party at Jen’s boyfriend Horus’ house ( actually it’s his mother’s house but it’s still great surf&turf place) he sees it as a sign and he takes Alice with him to spend the weekend at there.
The weekend at the house, intercourses between bunch of weird guests ( Carla and her clairvoyance skills are the winner of this incredibly strange people competition), the awkward dialogues, ultra absurd incidents they deal were the best chapter of the novel.
Because after the party time, our boring couple return back to their more boring, meaningless lives and painful, and energy sucking, slowly killing jobs but nothing is the same. Things already got of the rails and ....so many WTH moments later, the story’s direction whirl around just like a car jumps off a cliff and repeat that action over and over again.
You feel like you’re drugged and experiencing a different reality you’d never known.
The horrific, jaw dropping ending is epic final to this intriguing, confusing and unique madness!
I think if you’re open to read something you’d never read before and if you are great fans of surreal, mind blowing fantasy works, you should definitely give this book a chance.
I never read something like that! My head hurts! My grain cells need renewal but overall it was wildest craziest darkest and funniest journey I’ve never had before!
Special thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.
August 10, 2021
Reading this novel was like being on a rollercoaster and thinking, ok, I'm on this rollercoaster, and so I know where this ride is going...only your car keeps leaping off the tracks and out into space before it somehow finds its course along another stretch of track, one that might just belong to a different roller coaster altogether.
I read breathlessly. The journey thrilled me. The bravery of Beth Morgan, to take this story to the places she did, reminds me of where Flannery O'Connor took Wise Blood or more recently, where Hari Kunzru took White Tears. I'm also reminded of the films of Yorgos Lanthimos, in particular The Killing of the Sacred Deer, for the way this story has an internal logic that works perfectly as art, but that falls apart if taken out of the peculiar reality in which it exists, or if forced to bend to the rules of realism, or even to the rules that most fiction is written by.
In addition to being an intense and unique reading experience, along the way the author has some remarkable things to say about faith, solipsism, parasocial relationships, and how we derive meaning (or not) from the barrage of sensory inputs that make up our daily lives.
Also, wow, the dialogue in this story is amazing, as is the way Morgan captures the tiny self-editing/self-blaming/self-conscious thoughts we all have when in conversation with our fellow human beings.
I loved this reading experience. I'm happy someone with Beth Morgan's imagination and talent lives in the world. I'm so, so happy this book got published the way it did. Yeah. Read it.
I read breathlessly. The journey thrilled me. The bravery of Beth Morgan, to take this story to the places she did, reminds me of where Flannery O'Connor took Wise Blood or more recently, where Hari Kunzru took White Tears. I'm also reminded of the films of Yorgos Lanthimos, in particular The Killing of the Sacred Deer, for the way this story has an internal logic that works perfectly as art, but that falls apart if taken out of the peculiar reality in which it exists, or if forced to bend to the rules of realism, or even to the rules that most fiction is written by.
In addition to being an intense and unique reading experience, along the way the author has some remarkable things to say about faith, solipsism, parasocial relationships, and how we derive meaning (or not) from the barrage of sensory inputs that make up our daily lives.
Also, wow, the dialogue in this story is amazing, as is the way Morgan captures the tiny self-editing/self-blaming/self-conscious thoughts we all have when in conversation with our fellow human beings.
I loved this reading experience. I'm happy someone with Beth Morgan's imagination and talent lives in the world. I'm so, so happy this book got published the way it did. Yeah. Read it.
December 31, 2021
There are 7 stages to reading A Touch of Jen:
1) “Wow, page 7 is really early to mention the concept of torture in a cavalier tone.”
2) “These characters are unbearable”
3) “I think I’m going to stop reading this…”
4) “wtf. Wtf. WTF!”
5) “My brain feels like a tablespoon of butter in microwave and is in real danger of leaking out my ears.”
6) “Why is Jake Gyllenhaal here?”
7) Acceptance
For the most part, I don’t know what to think of this book. I actually don’t know if I can still think at all (see stage 5). For the most part, this book is like reading an indie movie. Like, I imagine reading a novelization of “The Lobster” would feel similar. Nobody talks like real people. Nobody acts like real people. It’s like every character is a funhouse mirror reflection of a human…but you want to punch every single one of those reflections in the face. Most of the time I felt like this book takes itself way too seriously and that drives me nuts. But…there’s more to it than that.
For starters, there are moments where it’s genuinely funny. There are moments where the author flexed a little and I felt like I could appreciate the writing. But those moments were few and far between. But then there’s the end. I think I am going to be thinking about the last couple pages forever. There’s a nonzero chance they will haunt my nightmares.
I almost put this down and didn’t finish it multiple times, but I’m glad I stayed. The last hundred pages are WILD. It moves from navel-gazing indie movie to sci-fi horror B movie—and that’s a genre I can roll with. The book gets gore-y towards the end (but this review will not, don’t worry). By this point, the first two thirds of the book had just completely knocked down all my expectations and robbed me of a significant number of fine motor skills. So, when it suddenly got intense and spooky and a little bit psychological horror-ish, the two brain cells I had left were thrilled to be on that roller coaster ride.
I really need to talk about this book with someone because there's a lot to unpack here and I haven't been able to sort through anything but the socks. I'm still turning over questions like the main character is very obviously horrible and sexist, is that adequately addressed or did this hit some of the same pitfalls as other stories where the main character sucks? Also, one of the other main characters supposedly had brain damage as a kid and everything about the treatment of that feels...not great at best.
So, read at your own risk, I think. You’re either the kind of person this book was written for or not. If, earlier, when I said, “novelization of The Lobster,” you thought “I need that in my life,” this book is probably for you.
Fun though the end was, the more I think about this book, the more I think that the movie “Save Yourselves!” did everything this book is doing but better, funnier, with less gore and believable characters.
If you picked this book up on a whim like I did…buckle up is all I can say.
(I think my rating is more a 2.5, but since I got this as an ARC and it doesn't have many reviews yet, I'm rounding up.)
1) “Wow, page 7 is really early to mention the concept of torture in a cavalier tone.”
2) “These characters are unbearable”
3) “I think I’m going to stop reading this…”
4) “wtf. Wtf. WTF!”
5) “My brain feels like a tablespoon of butter in microwave and is in real danger of leaking out my ears.”
6) “Why is Jake Gyllenhaal here?”
7) Acceptance
For the most part, I don’t know what to think of this book. I actually don’t know if I can still think at all (see stage 5). For the most part, this book is like reading an indie movie. Like, I imagine reading a novelization of “The Lobster” would feel similar. Nobody talks like real people. Nobody acts like real people. It’s like every character is a funhouse mirror reflection of a human…but you want to punch every single one of those reflections in the face. Most of the time I felt like this book takes itself way too seriously and that drives me nuts. But…there’s more to it than that.
For starters, there are moments where it’s genuinely funny. There are moments where the author flexed a little and I felt like I could appreciate the writing. But those moments were few and far between. But then there’s the end. I think I am going to be thinking about the last couple pages forever. There’s a nonzero chance they will haunt my nightmares.
I almost put this down and didn’t finish it multiple times, but I’m glad I stayed. The last hundred pages are WILD. It moves from navel-gazing indie movie to sci-fi horror B movie—and that’s a genre I can roll with. The book gets gore-y towards the end (but this review will not, don’t worry). By this point, the first two thirds of the book had just completely knocked down all my expectations and robbed me of a significant number of fine motor skills. So, when it suddenly got intense and spooky and a little bit psychological horror-ish, the two brain cells I had left were thrilled to be on that roller coaster ride.
I really need to talk about this book with someone because there's a lot to unpack here and I haven't been able to sort through anything but the socks. I'm still turning over questions like the main character is very obviously horrible and sexist, is that adequately addressed or did this hit some of the same pitfalls as other stories where the main character sucks? Also, one of the other main characters supposedly had brain damage as a kid and everything about the treatment of that feels...not great at best.
So, read at your own risk, I think. You’re either the kind of person this book was written for or not. If, earlier, when I said, “novelization of The Lobster,” you thought “I need that in my life,” this book is probably for you.
Fun though the end was, the more I think about this book, the more I think that the movie “Save Yourselves!” did everything this book is doing but better, funnier, with less gore and believable characters.
If you picked this book up on a whim like I did…buckle up is all I can say.
(I think my rating is more a 2.5, but since I got this as an ARC and it doesn't have many reviews yet, I'm rounding up.)
June 21, 2023
why was jake gyllenhal a character in this book
August 13, 2021
A Touch of Jen is David Lynch meets Franz Kafka for the Instagram age. Boy oh boy, I was NOT expecting this weird and crazy, horrifying, bizarre literarly thrill ride when I first started what seemed like an innocuous book about a couple's off-kilter obsession with an Instagram influencer they vaguely know. The book starts out about this harmless (or so it seems) obsession with an Instagrammer who seems just a little too perfect, and morphs into a wild, weird, disjointed and humorous (really!) romp of bizarre imagery and weird happenings. I don't have the words to describe this book, as it is wholly unique. There are several ways to look at this book. Maybe it's a sci-fi story. Maybe it's a supernatural story. Maybe it's a story about a mentally ill, obsessed person. Or maybe it's a story about someone who is literally living in another reality. I have my interpretation, but it's open to many. Whatever you decide to believe about the book, the characters are fascinating, and the story is like a train wreck in slow motion that you can start to see coming...but you would NEVER predict that the train, say, turns into a mythological creature.
Beth Morgan has a dark and gritty sense of humor and a warped imagination, both of which I fully enjoyed in this impossible-to-explain book. If you like surrealist, dark, weird, humorous stuff, this is the book for you. Just hang on and enjoy the ride. With an imagination like this, Beth Morgan has quite a future in fiction and I can't wait to see what she comes up with next. One thing is for sure - it will surprise me.
Thanks to Little, Brown, NetGalley and the author for the ARC!
Beth Morgan has a dark and gritty sense of humor and a warped imagination, both of which I fully enjoyed in this impossible-to-explain book. If you like surrealist, dark, weird, humorous stuff, this is the book for you. Just hang on and enjoy the ride. With an imagination like this, Beth Morgan has quite a future in fiction and I can't wait to see what she comes up with next. One thing is for sure - it will surprise me.
Thanks to Little, Brown, NetGalley and the author for the ARC!
April 6, 2023
i could have dropped acid and still not imagined the twist.
July 7, 2021
A Touch of Jen was one of my most anticipated books of this year. I mean, ‘a love triangle so toxic that it breaks the order of the universe and unleashes a literal monster’? ‘Ottessa Moshfegh meets David Cronenberg’??? Hook it into my VEINS, or whatever it is that people say.
Remy and Alicia, a couple in their early thirties, are mutually fascinated by a woman called Jen, a former coworker of Remy’s. (It’s not really clear why, and that’s kind of the point; the obsession itself is more important than its subject.) Most of their conversations are about her, they spend huge amounts of time dissecting everything she posts online, and their sex life involves a lot of Jen-related roleplay. Remy and Alicia are mostly unlikeable yet somehow, against the odds, charming – you wouldn’t want to know them, but reading about them is pretty fun. Morgan writes their obsession with Jen perfectly: I really did believe that the idea of Remy hooking up with Jen was as exciting (possibly even more exciting) for Alicia as for Remy.
At least 90% of A Touch of Jen is a quirky comedy about the Remy/Alicia/Jen love triangle which, at its best, nearly matches the high-precision weirdness of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, but at its worst recalls the most random-without-a-cause sequences of Annaleese Jochems’ Baby. While the few glimpses we get of a monstrous, otherworldly presence are tantalising, they’re incidental until the story is almost over – at which point it suddenly explodes into the kind of high-octane horror-thriller stuff I associate with books like The Dark Net and The Changeling.
I did like the ending – the actual ending, i.e. the last couple of pages – a lot. It’s a better way to wrap everything up than I thought possible, while also being one of those ah, yes, of course endings that make perfect sense. But until that point, throughout the whole book in fact, I felt like I was constantly... waiting for something. I suppose it’s just that I was waiting for the moment I would really click with the story and start loving it, and that never happened. It’s a good concept, and fun, but much lighter than I expected, and ultimately just not a good match for my tastes.
(NB: not that I, or I’m sure most people reading this, take that kind of overexcited targeted-hype blurb language seriously, but it really isn’t anything like either Moshfegh or Cronenberg, if you were wondering. More like The Pisces meets John Dies at the End.)
I received an advance review copy of A Touch of Jen from the publisher through Edelweiss.
TinyLetter | Linktree
Remy and Alicia, a couple in their early thirties, are mutually fascinated by a woman called Jen, a former coworker of Remy’s. (It’s not really clear why, and that’s kind of the point; the obsession itself is more important than its subject.) Most of their conversations are about her, they spend huge amounts of time dissecting everything she posts online, and their sex life involves a lot of Jen-related roleplay. Remy and Alicia are mostly unlikeable yet somehow, against the odds, charming – you wouldn’t want to know them, but reading about them is pretty fun. Morgan writes their obsession with Jen perfectly: I really did believe that the idea of Remy hooking up with Jen was as exciting (possibly even more exciting) for Alicia as for Remy.
At least 90% of A Touch of Jen is a quirky comedy about the Remy/Alicia/Jen love triangle which, at its best, nearly matches the high-precision weirdness of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, but at its worst recalls the most random-without-a-cause sequences of Annaleese Jochems’ Baby. While the few glimpses we get of a monstrous, otherworldly presence are tantalising, they’re incidental until the story is almost over – at which point it suddenly explodes into the kind of high-octane horror-thriller stuff I associate with books like The Dark Net and The Changeling.
I did like the ending – the actual ending, i.e. the last couple of pages – a lot. It’s a better way to wrap everything up than I thought possible, while also being one of those ah, yes, of course endings that make perfect sense. But until that point, throughout the whole book in fact, I felt like I was constantly... waiting for something. I suppose it’s just that I was waiting for the moment I would really click with the story and start loving it, and that never happened. It’s a good concept, and fun, but much lighter than I expected, and ultimately just not a good match for my tastes.
(NB: not that I, or I’m sure most people reading this, take that kind of overexcited targeted-hype blurb language seriously, but it really isn’t anything like either Moshfegh or Cronenberg, if you were wondering. More like The Pisces meets John Dies at the End.)
I received an advance review copy of A Touch of Jen from the publisher through Edelweiss.
TinyLetter | Linktree
January 4, 2022
I don't know if it's a good thing or a not-so-good thing to get the year started with such a bizarre book. Is it indicative of the days and months ahead?
I've no doubt the characters in A Touch of Jen would see it as a sign, as they saw everything as a sign, "Signifiiers of the universal flow of energy".
We have Alicia and Remy who are obsessed with Jen, an old co-worker of Remy's. They
At times, I felt like I was stalking them, as absorbed in the story as I was. I couldn't get enough of Alicia and Remy, crazy and obnoxious as they were. I felt like a voyeur, peeking through their windows every chance I got.
But then about 3/4 of the way through, things take a.... an outlandish turn and I was lost. It just didn't make sense. It turned into a horror story. Or something. And all of a sudden, it just felt repetitive and silly and I could hardly wait for the book to end.
I gotta hand it to the author though. She knows how to write and engage the reader. Until that turning point, I loved reading this. I had fun reading it. It was hysterical at times.
It's a portrayal of our social media addicted society, with our dwindling attention spans. I had to laugh when Alicia, needing to learn how to pick the right drill bit for a project, tries to watch a YouTube video to learn how. But, "it’s nine minutes long. She does not have the time for that."
Sounds like me. If it's longer than one and a half minutes, I can't watch. What the hell is it with some people, taking a full two point five minutes to instruct me on how to build a pyramid? It can't be that difficult.
A Touch of Jen is unique and witty and weird. If you're looking for something different, try this book. 4 stars but it would have been five had I liked the last part more.
December 30, 2021
In all honesty, what pushed me towards picking this hallucination of a story up was the ass on the cover (it’s a gorgeous cover), but nothing could have ever prepared me for possibly one of the wildest rides of my entire life. This is what Franz Kafka would write if he was born in the year of 1992 and had a better sense of humor. Boy, was I scared, was I intrigued, was I entertained! Morgan has provided me with a masterpiece of a novel that makes me wish it were immediately converted into an on-screen adaptation so that I could rush to ScreenCrush on Youtube and watch a video entitled “A TOUCH OF JEN: EASTER EGGS + ENDING EXPLAINED.”
Remy and Alicia are a young couple just living their life, working their service jobs, doing their thing, right? They have a bit of an obsession with Jen, a woman that Remy used to work with (and also maybe like, LIKED liked a little), so much so that they find themselves referencing her Instagram photos in daily conversation and even roleplaying as her as a character in bed. Parasocial relationship going crazy bonkers off the charts right now fr!! In a momentous turn of events, the pair run into Jen in person and end up deciding to go on a surfing trip with her and some of her friends. This is where things start to get weird.
I REFUSE to go into any further detail than what I’ve already given, but there is so much more to the story that meets the eye. Most of my enjoyment that came out of reading this novel was from the sheer surprise that it provided me, and I want you all to go in blind too. The twists sure were something! Once I finished, I sat there staring at the very last page for at least three minutes trying to decide whether or not I hated it. I think I’ve settled on not hating it. Although what just happened was crazy unexpected, I think it was a brilliant way to incorporate commentary on social media, relationships, self-perception, and even spirituality in the modern age.
Morgan just gets the world. She gets it. So deeply. Ugh her mind!!! Okay, perhaps I’m exaggerating, but I ADORE the particular plot points and symbols she worked into the horror story to make grander speculations about the world as a whole. Every Signifier (lol inside joke if you read the book) was so meticulously chosen that once you ruminated over the ending of the book, it does make a lot of sense. This is a book that I will be thinking about for a LONG time, and if you’ve read it, let me know!! I’d love to discuss it with you.
Remy and Alicia are a young couple just living their life, working their service jobs, doing their thing, right? They have a bit of an obsession with Jen, a woman that Remy used to work with (and also maybe like, LIKED liked a little), so much so that they find themselves referencing her Instagram photos in daily conversation and even roleplaying as her as a character in bed. Parasocial relationship going crazy bonkers off the charts right now fr!! In a momentous turn of events, the pair run into Jen in person and end up deciding to go on a surfing trip with her and some of her friends. This is where things start to get weird.
I REFUSE to go into any further detail than what I’ve already given, but there is so much more to the story that meets the eye. Most of my enjoyment that came out of reading this novel was from the sheer surprise that it provided me, and I want you all to go in blind too. The twists sure were something! Once I finished, I sat there staring at the very last page for at least three minutes trying to decide whether or not I hated it. I think I’ve settled on not hating it. Although what just happened was crazy unexpected, I think it was a brilliant way to incorporate commentary on social media, relationships, self-perception, and even spirituality in the modern age.
Morgan just gets the world. She gets it. So deeply. Ugh her mind!!! Okay, perhaps I’m exaggerating, but I ADORE the particular plot points and symbols she worked into the horror story to make grander speculations about the world as a whole. Every Signifier (lol inside joke if you read the book) was so meticulously chosen that once you ruminated over the ending of the book, it does make a lot of sense. This is a book that I will be thinking about for a LONG time, and if you’ve read it, let me know!! I’d love to discuss it with you.
August 3, 2022
This book is a complete mess. It starts off amazingly. We’re introduced to Remy and Alicia, a couple in their early thirties who share an obsession with Remy’s former coworker Jen. We never really understand why they’re so obsessed, Alicia especially, but that’s not the important part. The obsession itself is fascinating. After a chance encounter with Jen, they’re invited on a surfing trip with her, her boyfriend, and a group of friends. Had the book stayed on this trajectory, it would have been amazing. Alicia is such a fascinating character. But then (spoiler) Alicia is killed off and the book changes genres completely. And it just didn’t work for me. As the book is ending, I’m forcing myself to finish it. By this point, it’s so ridiculous and removed from where it began that I’m not enjoying it anymore. Then the book ends and I’m like… “ok? I guess…” There really doesn’t seem to be a point to it all, or maybe that’s the point? I don’t really know. The premise is so good and it starts out so well that it’s all the more disappointing when it devolves into what it eventually becomes. I’m so tired of these experimental, avant-garde, genre bending novels that turn out to be a muddled, unfocused mess.
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Instagram: @ePubPrincess
Blog: www.medium.com/@ePubPrincess
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 27, 2022
i'm happy for you. or sorry that happened
July 27, 2021
For many years, I had a secret literary shame: I couldn’t stop reading self-help books.
Fueled by a desire to combat my anxious and depressive moods, I plowed through self-help books like candy, searching for a guaranteed way to be the happiest, best version of myself. I read The Artist’s Way and devoted myself to daily morning pages and weekly artist dates. I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and got rid of everything that no longer sparked joy. I devoured paperbacks by Brené Brown, Gretchen Rubin, and Cal Newport, combining all their tips and tricks to optimize my colour-coded schedule, time-blocking the most minute of tasks. And after doing all of this, I wasn’t only still prone to anxiety and depression一I was even more tired than I was before, burnt out by the never-ending quest to reach perfection, an unattainable state.
This destructive allure of self-improvement is at the core of A Touch of Jen, the first novel by American writer Beth Morgan. Published mid-July by Little Brown, A Touch of Jen is Morgan’s first novel. Billed as “Ottessa Moshfegh meets David Cronenberg,” it more than lives up to that description一to get specific, it’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation meets The Fly. While many contemporary novels written by millennial women get marketed as Moshfegh-esque, A Touch of Jen shares more than one passing similarity with My Year of Rest and Relaxation: the New York City setting, the unlikeability of the uncanny and bizarre protagonists, a character recovering from bulimia, and a delusional quest towards “wellness” motivated by deep trauma and grief.
The novel is told from the third-person point-of-view of Remy and Alicia, a couple in their late 20s who have been together for two years and live with a roommate, Jake, in New York City. Both Remy and Alicia work at restaurants and are obsessed with an old coworker of Remy’s, a woman named Jen, who Remy used to have a crush on. The two constantly check Jen’s Instagram一filtered pictures of her on vacation, photo-shopped pictures of her grabbing drinks. They fantasize about her, with Alicia often role-playing as Jen when she’s in bed with Remy. One day, Alicia and Remy run into Jen out of the blue at the Apple Store, where she invites them to come on a surfing trip with her, her boyfriend, and her friends in Montauk.
During the trip to Montauk, Jen and her friends introduce Alicia to a self-help book called The Apple Bush. Written by A. B. Fisketjon, “a healer, lifestyle expert, and spiritual counselor,” the book describes manifesting the energy of the universe to become the ultimate version of yourself. Explaining it to Alicia, Jen says,
“You know, you should really read The Apple Bush...”
“You’re obsessed. Apples don’t even grow on bushes. They grow on trees.”
“If you read the book, you would know that’s the point!”
Carla says, “It’s about seeing the potential of everyone around you. There’s all this invisible energy flowing around us all the time. What we don’t recognize is that all these little details一words we overhear or images we see in our dreams一are Signifiers of this universal energy. If you learn to recognize these Signifiers of Flow, then you can channel your potential for transformation.”
“You can laugh if you want, but that shit is real,” says Jen.
Morgan’s skewering of the fallacy of self-improvement was one of the strongest themes in the novel. In an interview with The Rumpus, she stated that this came from her desire to “portray the absurdity and self-absorption of the personal journey or the hero’s journey.” Hearing the advice from The Apple Bush felt eerily familiar: all of the language used around self-help is now mainstream and no longer derided as hippie “woo-woo,” rebranded instead in masculinist and capitalist terms as efficiency, productivity, and personal success. This was clear when several characters told Remy to “reject the tyranny of money over [his] life,” a line that was painfully real to how many perceive manifestation and “energy” work.
While A Touch of Jen starts as a typical millennial literary realist novel, in the second half it becomes a full-blown horror novel featuring plenty of “stylized violence,” as Remy would say. The seeds of what’s to come are planted from the first page, inklings of gore and discomfort oozing out of Alicia and Remy from the first few chapters, where they watch a “television show about a spy with exceptional fighting-slash-torturing skills… [where] about once every episode someone gets their kneecaps drilled, or is dissolved in a tub of acid.”
The two are unlikeable and bizarre from the start, not only because of their obsession with Jen but with how they speak and communicate with each other. Both Remy and Alicia feel so uncanny and eerie that it’s disquieting to read, an ironic feeling considering Remy later accuses someone else of acting “like a lizard in a human suit.” It’s the same quality that characters in Yargos Lanthimos’ work have: people acting like people, but with something just slightly, disturbingly off.
This strangeness and defiance of genre expectations was the best part of A Touch of Jen. In The Rumpus, Morgan stated, “I was just really excited by the idea of starting the book in everyday reality and taking it into this realm of fantasy because books and movies that I really like take risks and go somewhere you’re really not expecting them to go.” Reading A Touch of Jen was one narrative left turn after another一as soon as I got in a groove of where the plot was going, Morgan shifted lanes to a different reality entirely. What starts as a book about a weird couple with an Instagram crush becomes a summer trip gone wrong, then a quest for self-improvement, followed by a surprising accident and its horrific and monstrous consequences. It’s a suspenseful page-turner, but not in a conventional way that feels teasing to the reader. It’s simply so strange that you cannot put it down because you need to figure out where the hell the story is going. In addition to the suspense一arguably, its biggest strength一it’s also brilliantly written, with unexpectedly funny dialogue and surprising use of unlikeable characters as protagonists.
I don’t read self-help books anymore. While they may have once helped with a few practical and timeless guidelines (shout-out to journaling for being the MVP of my mental health), there is never a single way to become the best version of yourself. Happiness doesn’t occur from copying someone else’s advice or as A Touch of Jen proves, copying someone else’s persona entirely.
ENJOYED THIS REVIEW? It originally appeared in my newsletter, Why's World. Subscribe here for more contemporary book reviews of the queer, bizarre, and bold: alannawhy.substack.com
Fueled by a desire to combat my anxious and depressive moods, I plowed through self-help books like candy, searching for a guaranteed way to be the happiest, best version of myself. I read The Artist’s Way and devoted myself to daily morning pages and weekly artist dates. I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and got rid of everything that no longer sparked joy. I devoured paperbacks by Brené Brown, Gretchen Rubin, and Cal Newport, combining all their tips and tricks to optimize my colour-coded schedule, time-blocking the most minute of tasks. And after doing all of this, I wasn’t only still prone to anxiety and depression一I was even more tired than I was before, burnt out by the never-ending quest to reach perfection, an unattainable state.
This destructive allure of self-improvement is at the core of A Touch of Jen, the first novel by American writer Beth Morgan. Published mid-July by Little Brown, A Touch of Jen is Morgan’s first novel. Billed as “Ottessa Moshfegh meets David Cronenberg,” it more than lives up to that description一to get specific, it’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation meets The Fly. While many contemporary novels written by millennial women get marketed as Moshfegh-esque, A Touch of Jen shares more than one passing similarity with My Year of Rest and Relaxation: the New York City setting, the unlikeability of the uncanny and bizarre protagonists, a character recovering from bulimia, and a delusional quest towards “wellness” motivated by deep trauma and grief.
The novel is told from the third-person point-of-view of Remy and Alicia, a couple in their late 20s who have been together for two years and live with a roommate, Jake, in New York City. Both Remy and Alicia work at restaurants and are obsessed with an old coworker of Remy’s, a woman named Jen, who Remy used to have a crush on. The two constantly check Jen’s Instagram一filtered pictures of her on vacation, photo-shopped pictures of her grabbing drinks. They fantasize about her, with Alicia often role-playing as Jen when she’s in bed with Remy. One day, Alicia and Remy run into Jen out of the blue at the Apple Store, where she invites them to come on a surfing trip with her, her boyfriend, and her friends in Montauk.
During the trip to Montauk, Jen and her friends introduce Alicia to a self-help book called The Apple Bush. Written by A. B. Fisketjon, “a healer, lifestyle expert, and spiritual counselor,” the book describes manifesting the energy of the universe to become the ultimate version of yourself. Explaining it to Alicia, Jen says,
“You know, you should really read The Apple Bush...”
“You’re obsessed. Apples don’t even grow on bushes. They grow on trees.”
“If you read the book, you would know that’s the point!”
Carla says, “It’s about seeing the potential of everyone around you. There’s all this invisible energy flowing around us all the time. What we don’t recognize is that all these little details一words we overhear or images we see in our dreams一are Signifiers of this universal energy. If you learn to recognize these Signifiers of Flow, then you can channel your potential for transformation.”
“You can laugh if you want, but that shit is real,” says Jen.
Morgan’s skewering of the fallacy of self-improvement was one of the strongest themes in the novel. In an interview with The Rumpus, she stated that this came from her desire to “portray the absurdity and self-absorption of the personal journey or the hero’s journey.” Hearing the advice from The Apple Bush felt eerily familiar: all of the language used around self-help is now mainstream and no longer derided as hippie “woo-woo,” rebranded instead in masculinist and capitalist terms as efficiency, productivity, and personal success. This was clear when several characters told Remy to “reject the tyranny of money over [his] life,” a line that was painfully real to how many perceive manifestation and “energy” work.
While A Touch of Jen starts as a typical millennial literary realist novel, in the second half it becomes a full-blown horror novel featuring plenty of “stylized violence,” as Remy would say. The seeds of what’s to come are planted from the first page, inklings of gore and discomfort oozing out of Alicia and Remy from the first few chapters, where they watch a “television show about a spy with exceptional fighting-slash-torturing skills… [where] about once every episode someone gets their kneecaps drilled, or is dissolved in a tub of acid.”
The two are unlikeable and bizarre from the start, not only because of their obsession with Jen but with how they speak and communicate with each other. Both Remy and Alicia feel so uncanny and eerie that it’s disquieting to read, an ironic feeling considering Remy later accuses someone else of acting “like a lizard in a human suit.” It’s the same quality that characters in Yargos Lanthimos’ work have: people acting like people, but with something just slightly, disturbingly off.
This strangeness and defiance of genre expectations was the best part of A Touch of Jen. In The Rumpus, Morgan stated, “I was just really excited by the idea of starting the book in everyday reality and taking it into this realm of fantasy because books and movies that I really like take risks and go somewhere you’re really not expecting them to go.” Reading A Touch of Jen was one narrative left turn after another一as soon as I got in a groove of where the plot was going, Morgan shifted lanes to a different reality entirely. What starts as a book about a weird couple with an Instagram crush becomes a summer trip gone wrong, then a quest for self-improvement, followed by a surprising accident and its horrific and monstrous consequences. It’s a suspenseful page-turner, but not in a conventional way that feels teasing to the reader. It’s simply so strange that you cannot put it down because you need to figure out where the hell the story is going. In addition to the suspense一arguably, its biggest strength一it’s also brilliantly written, with unexpectedly funny dialogue and surprising use of unlikeable characters as protagonists.
I don’t read self-help books anymore. While they may have once helped with a few practical and timeless guidelines (shout-out to journaling for being the MVP of my mental health), there is never a single way to become the best version of yourself. Happiness doesn’t occur from copying someone else’s advice or as A Touch of Jen proves, copying someone else’s persona entirely.
ENJOYED THIS REVIEW? It originally appeared in my newsletter, Why's World. Subscribe here for more contemporary book reviews of the queer, bizarre, and bold: alannawhy.substack.com
July 20, 2021
I snatched this up instantly upon seeing the cover and the blurb indicating a literal monster would be unleashed. And I read the entire thing in one sitting. Mainly because until about the 90% mark I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. Smarter readers are sure to comment that this is some sort of social commentary about society’s addiction to social media and haves vs. have nots and blah blah blah. I’m not that smart of a girl so I’m simply going to say this obviously had some page turnability, but it failed to live up to my own expectations regarding the payoff. Probably because of this . . . .
Don’t tease me with “horror” and “Jen” and think my brain will ever go anywhere else.
ARC provided by the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
May 5, 2021
I’m not sure I know what to say about this book.
It’s starts off with Alicia and Remy cyber stalking a former coworker of Remy’s, Jen, who they incorporate into their sex life.
Alicia seems to want to both be Jen and be with her. Remy just seems like an asshole ‘nice guy’. Unlike other people in the story he doesn’t seem to have family, friends or much of a personality other than being angry all the time.
At this point I’m thinking it’s going to be about mental illness or devolve into something like You.
Then Alicia dies from a freak accident and Remy starts hearing something moving in his apartment at night.
This twist I don’t understand.
The thing is like a bug that’s a manifestation of the person keeping Remy from living his best life? I don’t know. Maybe I’m not smart enough or just don’t ‘get it’ but this was just weird and confusing as all get out.
Of course the bug thing and person keeping him from living his best life is Jen. So he kills her to stop the bug, takes her body back to his apartment (where his roommate is still laying on the floor dead!) and dumps her in the spod thing. Of course zombie Jen combined with Alicia climbs out and snuggles him.
The end.
Wtf.
It’s starts off with Alicia and Remy cyber stalking a former coworker of Remy’s, Jen, who they incorporate into their sex life.
Alicia seems to want to both be Jen and be with her. Remy just seems like an asshole ‘nice guy’. Unlike other people in the story he doesn’t seem to have family, friends or much of a personality other than being angry all the time.
At this point I’m thinking it’s going to be about mental illness or devolve into something like You.
Then Alicia dies from a freak accident and Remy starts hearing something moving in his apartment at night.
This twist I don’t understand.
The thing is like a bug that’s a manifestation of the person keeping Remy from living his best life? I don’t know. Maybe I’m not smart enough or just don’t ‘get it’ but this was just weird and confusing as all get out.
Of course the bug thing and person keeping him from living his best life is Jen. So he kills her to stop the bug, takes her body back to his apartment (where his roommate is still laying on the floor dead!) and dumps her in the spod thing. Of course zombie Jen combined with Alicia climbs out and snuggles him.
The end.
Wtf.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 16, 2021
What a weird one, I really enjoyed this. I see other reviews talking about this as Horror which, yes technically it is, but it is really only about 15% Horror. It's some of your reading experience but it's certainly not the majority of it. Still, I think some readers may find the designation useful otherwise they might find themselves too disoriented later on.
To me, though, this book was quite clear from page one that it was really effing weird and was going to lean into that hard even though there was little actual evidence of it on the page. There was nothing supernatural about it, rather it was immediately mundane. But there was a spark to it. We start off meeting Remy and Alicia and seeing how they talk about Jen. It is confusing for the first 10-20 pages and it's not until even later that you have a full understanding of who Jen is and why she's even relevant to them at all. And yet, from the very beginning the way they talk about her is charged. She has taken on a role in the rituals of their relationship in a way that may not be recognizable in its specificity, but that has the clear feel of the private language that can develop in couples and families. At first we have a mystery to solve: who is Jen and why does she matter?
From there things start to get weird oh so gradually. Some of it is in strange things Remy thinks he sees. But some of it is woven in very naturally through this self-help book that gets passed between the characters and referenced more and more. A kind of The-Secret-esque new age philosophy that keeps popping up until we as readers start to become familiar with it. But much of this goes unnoticed, we are so focused on the inter-character dynamics, so curious to see what will happen when Jen winds up in close quarters with Remy and Alicia.
By the time things take a turn, it starts to feel like just about anything could happen. At one point we go from very mild escalations to very extreme ones. I loved it. It is so all over the place, so ridiculous and yet so sharp in its observations. There are all kinds of little reveals, especially in the second half of the book, where we realize that while there is third person narration, it's been so close to Remy and Alicia's points of view that there are many things we didn't see because they didn't see. It becomes really delightfully batshit.
I have spent some time bemoaning how little What The Actual Fuck fiction there is written by women out there, but I just read two in a row (the other was the very different but also delightful NIGHTBITCH by Rachel Yoder) and I couldn't be happier. They belong with books like THE HIKE and WHITE TEARS and THE LIBRARY AT MOUNT CHAR. This book may be closer to real life but I think it actually sneaks itself into your brain even more because it is also one of the few books that gets texting, Instagram, and other ways we internet-stalk people we do not actually know very well. It is unafraid to show us the parts of Remy and Alicia that they hide from other people, the embarrassing and weird parts. It can feel like you are seeing things you shouldn't see much of the time.
On the other hand, if you aren't captivated pretty early on I'm guessing this is not the book for you. The rhythms and tone of the early chapters continue for most of the book. And even if Remy and Alicia are not particularly likable you need to feel that momentum to follow them for this to really work for you.
Content warnings for some rather brutal violence, death and funerals, alcohol use (and probably abuse), references to terminal illness.
To me, though, this book was quite clear from page one that it was really effing weird and was going to lean into that hard even though there was little actual evidence of it on the page. There was nothing supernatural about it, rather it was immediately mundane. But there was a spark to it. We start off meeting Remy and Alicia and seeing how they talk about Jen. It is confusing for the first 10-20 pages and it's not until even later that you have a full understanding of who Jen is and why she's even relevant to them at all. And yet, from the very beginning the way they talk about her is charged. She has taken on a role in the rituals of their relationship in a way that may not be recognizable in its specificity, but that has the clear feel of the private language that can develop in couples and families. At first we have a mystery to solve: who is Jen and why does she matter?
From there things start to get weird oh so gradually. Some of it is in strange things Remy thinks he sees. But some of it is woven in very naturally through this self-help book that gets passed between the characters and referenced more and more. A kind of The-Secret-esque new age philosophy that keeps popping up until we as readers start to become familiar with it. But much of this goes unnoticed, we are so focused on the inter-character dynamics, so curious to see what will happen when Jen winds up in close quarters with Remy and Alicia.
By the time things take a turn, it starts to feel like just about anything could happen. At one point we go from very mild escalations to very extreme ones. I loved it. It is so all over the place, so ridiculous and yet so sharp in its observations. There are all kinds of little reveals, especially in the second half of the book, where we realize that while there is third person narration, it's been so close to Remy and Alicia's points of view that there are many things we didn't see because they didn't see. It becomes really delightfully batshit.
I have spent some time bemoaning how little What The Actual Fuck fiction there is written by women out there, but I just read two in a row (the other was the very different but also delightful NIGHTBITCH by Rachel Yoder) and I couldn't be happier. They belong with books like THE HIKE and WHITE TEARS and THE LIBRARY AT MOUNT CHAR. This book may be closer to real life but I think it actually sneaks itself into your brain even more because it is also one of the few books that gets texting, Instagram, and other ways we internet-stalk people we do not actually know very well. It is unafraid to show us the parts of Remy and Alicia that they hide from other people, the embarrassing and weird parts. It can feel like you are seeing things you shouldn't see much of the time.
On the other hand, if you aren't captivated pretty early on I'm guessing this is not the book for you. The rhythms and tone of the early chapters continue for most of the book. And even if Remy and Alicia are not particularly likable you need to feel that momentum to follow them for this to really work for you.
Content warnings for some rather brutal violence, death and funerals, alcohol use (and probably abuse), references to terminal illness.
August 4, 2021
What a complete waste of my time.
September 14, 2021
When I think about all the books that won't be published because books like this one keeps taking space, I just...
What did I just read?
Why did I waste my time?
1/5
What did I just read?
Why did I waste my time?
1/5
Read
August 13, 2021what, and I cannot stress this enough, the hell did I just read
March 4, 2023
Going to be having nyquil nightmares about this tonight
January 23, 2021
Sigh, this book is probably getting a better rating than I feel about it because of its parts, not its sum. The first... 3/4s are a Halle-Butler-esque millennial malaise novel, about instagram influencers and toxic relationships and shitty people. The final quarter should've been my jam -- body horror and psychic weirdness that almost earns the Cronenberg tag in the jacket copy -- but it didn't hang together for me. You can't add a bunch of descriptors to your blurb if they all come in the last quarter of the book and expect people not to feel disappointment when the cool things they came for are rushed to fit at the end.
Also, I'm tired of the millennial malaise novel. That's not Beth Morgan's fault and it ain't on her that I didn't enjoy this because of that, but everyone has to have such realizations sometime.
Also, I'm tired of the millennial malaise novel. That's not Beth Morgan's fault and it ain't on her that I didn't enjoy this because of that, but everyone has to have such realizations sometime.
March 23, 2022
I went in with absolutely no expectations and was still disappointed.
November 10, 2022
wtf did I just read.
also this novel is a perfect example of “never let them know your next move”
also this novel is a perfect example of “never let them know your next move”
December 20, 2022
This one was a weird and wonderful rollercoaster. I had no idea where it was going at any point and I LOVED that.
February 21, 2022
She still believes in reaching an essential part of herself through discipline: If she does everything right, she’ll find her way to some mystical nugget…a form in which her beauty is self-evident, her destiny clear, her neuroses shriveled and fallen away. Often that version has seemed as concrete as a person sitting in the next room.
It makes sense that eventually, that person might knock on the door.
This book is an unhinged gem.
A Touch of Jen provides a bold commentary on social media, and is unabashedly weird and creepy. As these are two of my favorite adjectives when they apply to books, I’m very happy and I loved it. Would I recommend this to everyone? Well, definitely not. If you like Melissa Broder, Kristen Roupenian, and Ottessa Moshfegh then definitely hop on board.
The humor is dark, you never get a reprieve from the unsettling tone, the psychedelic horror element is incredibly bizarre, and the interactions between and ruthless examination of the characters behaviors is uncomfortable and often unfortunately relatable (to me anyway). It’s especially cringey because the main characters lack self-awareness while sort of also being hyper self-aware.
The toxic relationship and vulnerability of Alicia and Remy is especially painful to read, and that’s without factoring in their obsession with Jen. It has aspects that I think a lot of people can say is familiar in unhealthy relationships, but boosted 200% to reach wheelbarrow of crazy levels and veering in many deranged directions.
Side note: The Jake Gyllenhaal part cracked me up. What the actual hell 😭
It makes sense that eventually, that person might knock on the door.
This book is an unhinged gem.
A Touch of Jen provides a bold commentary on social media, and is unabashedly weird and creepy. As these are two of my favorite adjectives when they apply to books, I’m very happy and I loved it. Would I recommend this to everyone? Well, definitely not. If you like Melissa Broder, Kristen Roupenian, and Ottessa Moshfegh then definitely hop on board.
The humor is dark, you never get a reprieve from the unsettling tone, the psychedelic horror element is incredibly bizarre, and the interactions between and ruthless examination of the characters behaviors is uncomfortable and often unfortunately relatable (to me anyway). It’s especially cringey because the main characters lack self-awareness while sort of also being hyper self-aware.
The toxic relationship and vulnerability of Alicia and Remy is especially painful to read, and that’s without factoring in their obsession with Jen. It has aspects that I think a lot of people can say is familiar in unhealthy relationships, but boosted 200% to reach wheelbarrow of crazy levels and veering in many deranged directions.
Side note: The Jake Gyllenhaal part cracked me up. What the actual hell 😭
November 27, 2021
The author’s use of social media and texting gives pitch perfect voice to Remy and Alicia and their warped relationships. Their play acting with Jen’s Instagram account morphs into an identity crisis that is mixed with Morgan’s delightful comedic writing. These pages and Beth Morgan’s creative writing are full of surprises and breaks the mold of a traditional story. It’s a promising start with her debut novel. 4.5 stars.
July 22, 2021
Offensively ridiculous and boring, poorly written, nonsensical plot, sexist. Please don't waste your time,
January 6, 2022
well this was definitely an experience…
Read
August 25, 2021A different read than what I normally encountered, I enjoyed the humor especially the knock knock joke about someone being in the kitchen. The read was mostly bland. The two main characters don’t have much going on in their lives. They complain a lot about different things. It’s odd that Alicia would put up with pretending to be Jen for Remy’s sake because Remy was obsessed with Jen though readers may think Alicia was obsessed with Jen too. There’s a bit of life to their boring lives when they attended the surfing trip. After they come home, nothing else interesting was going on.
This book started with Remy and Alicia, told in the third person point of view. They were both obsessed with looking at Jen’s photos on multiple social media platforms. Jen used to work with Remy and he’s upset that they didn’t stayed friends after the company closed down. Alicia sometimes pretend to be Jen for role playing with Remy. One day, the couple ran into Jen in real life. Jen reacquainted with Remy and invited both to a surfing trip hosted by her boyfriend Horus. Horus’s a surf instructor so naturally he gave Remy and Alicia lessons because they don’t know how to surf. The story weaved between Alicia and Remy’s thoughts.
A Touch of Jen was well written. I read every word up to 50% of the book. I just couldn’t push further. I loved the cover and the idea of following someone on social media and imitating them but Alicia’s imitation was short to just Jen’s mean personality towards Remy. I will donate this book to the Little Free Library next month and hopefully someone will love reading it.
xoxo, Jasmine at www.howusefulitis.wordpress.com for more details
Many thanks to Little, Brown and Company for the opportunity to read and review. Please be assured that my opinions are honest.
This book started with Remy and Alicia, told in the third person point of view. They were both obsessed with looking at Jen’s photos on multiple social media platforms. Jen used to work with Remy and he’s upset that they didn’t stayed friends after the company closed down. Alicia sometimes pretend to be Jen for role playing with Remy. One day, the couple ran into Jen in real life. Jen reacquainted with Remy and invited both to a surfing trip hosted by her boyfriend Horus. Horus’s a surf instructor so naturally he gave Remy and Alicia lessons because they don’t know how to surf. The story weaved between Alicia and Remy’s thoughts.
A Touch of Jen was well written. I read every word up to 50% of the book. I just couldn’t push further. I loved the cover and the idea of following someone on social media and imitating them but Alicia’s imitation was short to just Jen’s mean personality towards Remy. I will donate this book to the Little Free Library next month and hopefully someone will love reading it.
xoxo, Jasmine at www.howusefulitis.wordpress.com for more details
Many thanks to Little, Brown and Company for the opportunity to read and review. Please be assured that my opinions are honest.
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