Instagram story viewer> @literarycrushes> Posts

Caroline Mason

@literarycrushes

360

posts

7.3K

followers

1995

following

📍 NYC
📕 Literary Fiction Enthusiast & writer
📚 CR: Waiting on a Friend by Natalie Adler

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Download All

I’ve been calling myself a writer for almost ten years, but now I can finally say I am an AUTHOR!When adults asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d say I wanted to publish a book by 30 (which I thought was soooo old at the time), and I wish I could go back and tell that little girl reading in a corner that SHE DID IT! I am so grateful to @mfwills_ , a dream of an agent who’s been this novel’s biggest champion! And a huge thank you to my editor @chelseaport924, who believed in the vision!I can’t wait for you all to meet Carson in early 2027! by @literarycrushes

828

240

a year ago

Dear Monica Lewinsky takes us back to a summer in the late 90s in France, as teenage Jean lusts after her (older, married) professor, emptying herself out to become a vessel he could shape like faith, and the ensuing fallout that reads like a metaphor for history’s obsession with shaming women for their desires. the novel has a truly unique premise: Jean, now in her 40s, receives an email from David, the former professor. This message unmoors her, severing the already thin ties connecting her to the life she’s currently living (gainfully employed civil servant married to ‘nice’ man in Hoboken). Spiraling, she prays to Saint Monica Lewinsky—the patron saint of female mortification at the altar of public opinion—whose highly publicized trial unfurled the same summer as Jean’s undoing. When Saint Monica appears to Jean in the basement of a Manhattan church, the two return to that summer. At 19, Jean felt she lacks a point. She doesn’t know how to flip the switch from girl to woman. When she is accepted to a summer program studying church ruins in France, she is overjoyed at the chance to become something, never mind that she has little interest in architecture or religion. Instead, she focuses the heat of her fixation on David.David awakens ‘Ruthless Jean,’ a newly discovered sexual being who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. She feels as if she’s had a surveillance camera implanted in her skin, viewing herself anew she imagines herself being watched by him. She has the kind of painful, cringe-inducing interior monologue that feels so true to adolescence. She is enragingly earnest, even as (especially as) she lies to herself. She is needlessly competitive, especially with the other straight women.I do wish we spent more time with present-day Jean as the flashbacks made it feel more like a coming-of-age novel—building and building to a relationship that’s gross but concentual and short lived—whereas for me, the real story was in what happens after. How easily a woman can be dismissed to better suit a man, how under the guise of virtue we’ve sought to bring shame to women for simply wanting. by @literarycrushes

271

19

5 days ago

✨ a collection of mini reviews ✨ Returns & Exchanges by Kayla Rae Whitaker: A generational rags-to-riches Americana novel with a queer storyline! For something of this scale, it had a nostalgic tone that was almost cozy, & reminded me of the “classic” family novels by Franzen or Eugenides. Set in the 1980s in Kentucky, it follows the owners of a department store, a husband-and-wife team, as they scale their business and the pitfalls that follow. I really enjoyed Fran’s (the wife) storyline as she undoes her internalized homophobia and grapples with wanting to become her own person. Nerve Damage by Annakeara Stinson: “So much of love is whatever horrible shit only the two of you know.” This book was a wild ride—a girl being stalked by her ex starts stalking him back. It’s definitely cringey and a little horrific, but everyone in this book is psychotic, and I love that.Actress by Anne Enright: A daughter’s haunting portrait of her famous mother exploring the conflicting fragments of the woman as both mother and public figure. Often (& continually into middle age) overlooked in favor of her mother, Norah, the daughter, grapples with the lasting effects of being loved by a woman whom she would never be able to fully understand and always had to share. The behind-the-scenes looks into the damage of getting into character—including having to get into the character of herself—can do on your psyche, even slowly driving a person mad. by @literarycrushes

177

21

12 days ago

☀️ Midsummer check-in 🌞 by @literarycrushes

203

8

18 days ago

☀️ Two Perfect Beach Reads Coming Out This Week ☀️ 🧼 The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson: When Caroline, a writer from New York City (sound familiar? lol) moves to a small beach town in Massachusetts for a long-term writing residency, she falls for a local boy... and into his group of friends with 30 years of baggage. Not least of all his ex-situationship, whom is accidentally pregnant with his baby. Told through multi-POV and inspired by Updike’s novel Couples, TSE is full of salacious drama and complex characters I couldn’t help to both judge and root for. If you liked JJ’s debut novel Pineapple Street, you’ll definitely enjoy this one! 💕Main Characters by Bobby Palmer: I was immediately intrigued by this novel concept—a decades-spanning love story told exclusively through the perspectives of the people surrounding Clara and Seb. It’s written in the style of 90s/early 2000s Ricard Curtis Rom-Coms, partly thanks to its setting (London, mostly) and cinematic lens. Due to this choice, we rely on snippets of overheard dialogue and physical descriptors rather the traditional interior monologues of the MCs, hearing from the subjective family members and loved ones who give insight into their pasts, to the relatively objective thoughts of tipsy passer-bys and local baristas who observe body language and clothing. I feel like execution of this concept must have been difficult as you need to get readers to care about the characters while having the limitation of never actually getting to see inside their minds, and to maintain tone while moving between dozens and dozens of perspectives, but I think the author achieved it quite beautifully, striking a nice balance between romance and literary genres. TY to the tagged publishers for the #gifted copies, these both come out tomorrow (6/30) by @literarycrushes

195

22

a month ago

🍊 currently reading 🍊 by @literarycrushes

592

15

a month ago

My first R.F. Kuang! Taipei Story is a deeply interior coming-of-age novel centering on feelings of alienation and identity. Lily, a rising sophomore at Yale, embarks on an immersive Mandarin summer program in Taiwan. As a Chinese American who spent time in mainland China as a child, Lily has an unrealistic expectation that, once she arrives in Taipei, the language and culture will immediately click and feel like home. But when her expectation is quickly dismantled, replaced by a series of culture shocks, Lily begins questioning herself and her worldview. I think the novel does a really beautiful job at capturing loneliness—which is such a universal feeling yet so hard to depict on the page—specifically the feeling of being lonely in a foreign place. Lily feels the film of isolation like a second skin, coating her body along with the constant layer of sweat and industrial bug spray.There were elements of the novel that felt like a travel diary as Lily describes her days (when she is not in class) eating and wandering somewhat listlessly around the city. After drama arises between Lily, her roommate Anna, and a TikTok-famous classmate JC, Lily’s internal reckoning is brought to a head by the sudden death of her grandfather, a loss that sets her further adrift. What does it mean to process the grief of losing an a relative you once loved but haven’t seen in years, while living in a place you believed should feel like home but remains a mystery? Thank you @williammorrowbooks for the #gifted copy. TS comes out in September but you can pre-order now! by @literarycrushes

2k

48

a month ago

John of John is a devastating yet heartwarming novel about a father-son(-grandmother) relationship set against the backdrop of a remote Scottish island and its tightknit inhabitants. Deep in debt after graduating from a textile school in Edinburgh, 22-year-old Cal (John-Calum Mcleod) feels both resentment and relief when he returns to the Outer Hebrides after his father, John, tells him that he needs to come home to care for his sick granny. On the one hand, he can return without the shame of outright failure. On the other, he is forced back into the closet, away from his dream to use his art degree to make something of himself, wondering how he went from discussing Tom Ford’s assentation with Gucci to being slapped on the back of the hand (and much worse) for refusing to cut his hair and be at church on time. John is a pious sheep farmer who takes his reputation on the island church very seriously and laments his son’s ability or desire to follow suit. That the two love each other is never questioned, but they lack an ability to communicate, in part because they are both terrified of letting the other know who they really are. The island setting feels apt here as each character is something of an island unto themselves. Everyone in the small town seems to know everyone else’s business (you can’t so much as hug someone in the backyard of the local inn/pub without the whole town knowing), yet every interior perspective we’re let in on is wildly different from the one they’d presented to another character. As in Stuart’s previous 2 novels, the writing is phenomenal. It has a slightly lighter feel than the others— it’s still intense, but there is a levity to it that I enjoyed, buoyed by the hilarious bitchy and witty commentary of Cal and Ella (his grandmother). ALSO, there’s a pretty big twist (or something similar to a twist)—it comes pretty early on, and I won’t spoil, but I do want to talk to people about if you read it!! by @literarycrushes

413

22

a month ago

✨ a collection of mini-reviews ☀️ New Skin by Sarah Wang: A fascinating mother-daughter story that delves into the dark side of our culture’s beauty standards and obsession with plastic surgery. Body horror a la 2004’s reality show The Swan, but written with a beautifully literary style. Kill Dick by Luke Goebel: A sharply written, dual POV Los Angeles noir that had me laughing and creeped out in equal measures. In the vein of Brett Easton Ellis, it follows the young, beautiful, and rich kids of LA as they get wrapped up in the city’s druggy underbelly. I really enjoyed this one! The Plunge by Lila Raicek: There was something pleasantly nostalgic about this novel, which follows a woman’s return to New York City following a highly publicized scandal that ended in the death of her fiancé. It’s eerie & sexy feels in the vein of a modern ‘In the Cut’ (Susanna Moore even blurbed it!) that classic 90s noir style I love. Body Language by Meg Howery: A moving yet cozy story of the adult sisters dealing with the decline of their mother’s memory and health. I haven’t read many stories that feel so accurate about having to care for an elderly parent. Nevada by Imogen Binnie: This queer classic has been on my shelf for years! It goes a bit off the hinges in the second half, but I was along for the ride. Room 706 by Ellie Levenson: A man and a woman who’ve been having a years-long affair get trapped inside their London hotel room during an emergency, forcing them (or at least her) to reevaluate their lives as they prepare to potentially lose them. A literary locked-room story is hard to pull off, but this was an enjoyable page turner. The Petting Zoo by Jim Carroll: Another book that had been on my TBR for years. A bizarre setup—an art world it-boy has a mental breakdown at a Caravaggio exhibit that gets him committed to a psych ward on Park Avenue. Upon his release, he feels he sees his life in a new clarity and begins a meditation on the art world and what it means to lead a creative life.Ty to the tagged publishes for the #gifted copies! by @literarycrushes

215

14

2 months ago

🐈 Kitten was one of my most anticipated fall releases and I’m so glad to say that it absolutely lives up to all the hype!This is weird girl lit cannon for sure, but there was also something so consistently vulnerable in Yu’s writing style that goes so much deeper than “weird” as Katie draws us into the recesses of her mind. Freshly out of college, 22-year-old Katie views herself as a blank space, a girl-shaped nonentity. She seems totally lost by the concept of adulthood—the career paths, strong opinions and friendships that she is convinced everyone besides her has all figured out. She allows and desires for others to take care of her but has a hard time believing when anyone claims to actually care about her. Just as her long-term roommate kicks her out of their apartment for non-payment, her (new-ish) boyfriend James invites her to stay at his family’s seaside home where they’ll cat sit his family’s cat Silver. Katie feels an immediate intense connection to Silver, the two of them being (or feeling), by nature, helpless. As the book goes on we learn more about Katie’s childhood in Arkansas where she was raised by an unwell, narcistic mother who’s blurred the lines between love and need, and who treats Katie’s growing up as a personal affront. At first, I expected pure toxic mommy issues (which would have been warranted) but I loved that it probed into the complexities of their relationship beyond that. Deeply interior with a wild plot, this is exactly the kind of coming-of-age / coming-of-personhood novel that I LOVE. Though taken to the extreme, being 22 does suck!! You (or I anyway) can identify with her self-destructive instincts to numb herself to the reality of having to make choices (& then, much worse, to live with those choices) as an adult by an all-consuming desire to be taken care ofTy @randomhousebooks 📕 #gifted by @literarycrushes

380

37

2 months ago

Lázár is both a wildly ambitious and quietly hauntingly novel partially inspired by the 22-year-old author’s own family’s legacy. Set between the turn of the twentieth century and the end of WW2, the novel tells the story of the Lázár’s, a well-off Hungarian Nobel family gradually sinking under the weight of its own ancestorial legacy, set against the historical backdrop of the decline and fall of the Habsburg Empire. The novel begins with the birth of Lajos von Lázár, a child born with light blue eyes and “translucent skin.” It’s magical realism elements (he’s not just pale, you can see his organs working beneath his skin) are light, extending mostly to the quasi-magical forest bordering the family’s estate which occasionally swallows people whole. The writing is extremely sharp and economical as he shows how each generation is doomed repeat the same cycles they swore not to break as children. He can express the feeling of falling desperately in love on one page only to disassemble the marriage on the next page. If anything, I could have perhaps used a family tree outline at some point as I had a hard time keeping track of who was related to who and how, but I also gulped this novel down in two sittings. A lot of the buzz surrounding the book is centered on the author’s age, but I think what’s most impressive it not that he can write so beautifully at his age—there have obviously been many great books by people under 25—but in how he is able to capture the weight of time and the psychological imprisonment of having many generation’s expectations heaped on the shoulders of a child and how that pressure affects them throughout their lives. Ty @summitbooks for the #gifted book and a fun celebration 🎂 by @literarycrushes

260

15

2 months ago

. . . I can’t remember the last time a novel left me this speechless. 1988 Jamacia: 8 men meet in rehearsals for a play that promises to expose the “fragile myth of Jamaican sexuality and homophobia.” The very act of putting on this play is transgressive in a time and place where stoic masculinity is the only accepted norm, and being publicly identified as a “battyman” is akin to a death sentence. We first enter this world through Eddy Porteous’s diary. He is 18 but tells everyone he is 17 to relive and reclaim his “fucked up” 17th year. Eddy’s voice really captures the dueling forces of his queer interior versus the outside world, which is telling him that to survive, he must be a ‘normal’ man. It’s a concept has been so ingrained into him that it even bleeds into his own diaristic world. On the night of the targeted murderous attack by a mob—an attack that is not a tragedy, but an “atrocity”—I was taken aback by the switch in perspectives to the mobs. Entering the minds of these extremely hateful, bigoted men was hard to read (like, A Little Life-level hard to read at times), but such an effective way to tell this story of how a country’s scars effects everyone. It really took me aback, but WOW!Following the attacks (not a spoiler, it’s on the book jacket!) the play disbands, some men vanishing into thin air, everyone focusing on just surviving in a world that would rather see them dead, where every single breath is a second guess. Told through varying perspectives and mediums, the novel has a collage-like feel to its storytelling that propels the reader through time through teenage diary entries, letters, witness statements and interviews. James truly immerses you into Kingston in the 80s, but what truly made this novel feel so incredible was the way he interweaves queer joy and love through their unending hardships. The way that these men are continuously saved by the beauty of pop music, literature and flashes of queer community had me in tears again and again. Thank you @riverheadbooks for the #gifted copy. I think this is going to be THE book of 2026. I can’t wait for this one to come into the world so I can talk about it with people! by @literarycrushes

235

22

3 months ago