(4.5) There's something in the water in 2019. It's been a bumper year for books by and about young women, books that talk about contemporary life in smart, fresh, subversive ways while remaining relatable. These books embrace feminism without taking the tedious dystopia route. They explore 'coming of age' without telling the types of stories that have been written a million times. They're all very different, but I feel inclined to group them together: Bunny, The New Me, Everything You Ever Wante (4.5) There's something in the water in 2019. It's been a bumper year for books by and about young women, books that talk about contemporary life in smart, fresh, subversive ways while remaining relatable. These books embrace feminism without taking the tedious dystopia route. They explore 'coming of age' without telling the types of stories that have been written a million times. They're all very different, but I feel inclined to group them together: Bunny, The New Me, Everything You Ever Wanted, Fake Like Me, The Paper Wasp, The Furies, Necessary People, and now Supper Club, the first novel by Lara Williams. I will admit that Williams' debut collection of short stories, Treats, didn't grab me, but this is a different animal altogether – it worked for me on every level.In Supper Club, Roberta and her best friend/housemate Stevie start... well, a supper club. It's a way for Roberta to indulge her love of cooking; it's a series of wild parties; it's a living art project. Members can give their appetites free rein, whether those appetites pertain to food, drink, drugs, sex, dancing, art, or whatever. This is a space where women are invited to be unapologetically greedy and unselfconscious. But Supper Club itself is best described as a good hook to hang the whole thing on. It's a beguiling idea, and probably the first thing you'd mention if you were describing the book to someone else; really, though, this story is about Roberta's life. And Roberta, happily, is brilliantly realised.Reading Supper Club was sometimes an eerie experience. I've hoped, for a long time, that a book would come along and enumerate my specifically awful experience of university – I thought Saltwater might be this book, and it wasn't – and now, here at last, unexpectedly, here it is. And set in the city I studied in, no less. In the present day, Roberta is in her late twenties, but her experiences of ten years earlier are the foundation of her character (and therefore the whole story). From her student days to her career to the minutiae of the way she thinks and feels about herself, observing Roberta was like peering through a portal at an only-slightly-different version of myself in some alternate universe. I must, therefore, say that some of my love for the novel was about seeing myself in this character and, naturally, feeling fiercely attached to her from the start. Another similarity between the books I mentioned earlier: the reviews, and even the official blurbs, rarely do them any justice whatsoever. Across different editions, Supper Club has been compared to Normal People, Fleabag and 'Cat Person', none of which make much sense to me. It got a starred review from Publishers Weekly, but the write-up they gave it is terrible – not even accurate, and misses everything that's engaging about the story. If we're doing comparisons, here are mine: it's the younger and slightly softer cousin of Emma Jane Unsworth's Animals, with its two close-knit friends whose lives end up heading in different directions; and like Stephanie Danler's similarly food-focused Sweetbitter, it understands that there is more than one coming-of-age moment in a person's lifetime, and those that come later are often the most significant.I don’t know how to feel about the ending. I wanted something more definite, I think. But I suppose I would say that, having seen myself reflected so sharply.Supper Club was an intensely personal experience for me, but I think I can hold it at arm's length enough to say it is objectively good. The lavish food writing and high-concept premise make it memorable, but I loved the universality of the core story – finding and losing friends and lovers; what happens when life doesn't quite go to plan. The broader plot and the smaller details are equally strong. This is a gem.I received an advance review copy of Supper Club from the publisher through Edelweiss.TinyLetter | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr
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