
Ripe
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Laurel Lefkow
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By:
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Sarah Rose Etter
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Named a Best Book of 2023 by Time, Huffington Post, Kirkus, and more * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * A Roxane Gay Audacious Book Club Selection * A Marie Claire Book Club Pick
A surreal novel with “a dark, delicious edge” (Time) about a woman in Silicon Valley who must decide how much she’s willing to give up for success—from an award-winning writer whose work Roxane Gay calls “utterly unique and remarkable.”
A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up, Cassie finds herself trapped in a corporate nightmare. Between the long hours, toxic bosses, and unethical projects, she also struggles to reconcile the glittering promise of a city where obscene wealth lives alongside abject poverty and suffering. Ivy League grads complain about the snack selection from a conference room with a view of unhoused people bathing in the bay. Start-up burnouts leap into the paths of commuter trains, and men literally set themselves on fire in the streets.
Though isolated, Cassie is never alone. From her earliest memory, a miniature black hole has been her constant companion. It feeds on her depression and anxiety, growing or shrinking in relation to her distress. The black hole watches, but it also waits. Its relentless pull draws Cassie ever closer as the world around her unravels.
When she ends up unexpectedly pregnant at the same time her CEO’s demands cross into illegal territory, Cassie must decide whether the tempting fruits of Silicon Valley are really worth it. Sharp but vulnerable, unsettling yet darkly comic, Ripe portrays one millennial woman’s journey through our late-capitalist hellscape and offers a brilliantly incisive look at the absurdities of modern life.
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EG Pomogrates and black holes
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Gloomy book about choices and values
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Cassie
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Intense and insightful
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Awful story
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Boring, repetitive writing. Zero character development. No transformation, no change, not even a zombie to spice things up. Move on.
Ghastly
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There were glimmers of hope for this book, but they were short-lived and buried by the constant "eg" and "black hole" metaphor. Both of which were extremely distracting and irritating. I found myself rolling my eyes and sighing every time either of them were mentioned, and they were mentioned every couple minutes.
EG, Sorry to say it doesn't get any better
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Underwhelming tries too hard
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I would give the narrator the benefit of the doubt here, except that she was so quiet at maximum volume that I still needed to be in a silent room to hear much of the story.
The premise is interesting. The character is interesting. The societal commentary is interesting. Even the definitions at the start of the chapters were interesting. The plot had almost no forward motion whatsoever, and the enraging overuse of E.G. killed what little there was.
This might be a decent book in print, but was the WORST audiobook experience I have had in years.
Difficult to rate this.
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Got it — the black hole was her life!
So what was the black hole anyway?
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