This was an interesting debut novel. It felt a bit wordy and drawn out but the author used some interesting devices and themes to tell a backwards story of a relationship gone wrong. There are some triggering themes, among them body dysmorphia. I am not rushing to recommend this book but I applaud the authors first attempt.

It was cute, not my favorite. I thought the pretense sounded good, but there was a lot of introspective dialogue from the main character trying too hard to be super deep? I cant really explain it better than that. But it read as cringey and unnatural in my opinion. I just found myself annoyed by the main character so it took away from the rest of it for me.

I really wanted to like this one but sadly it wasn't a favorite. I needed more character development, but maybe the unlikeable characters were just unable to develop?

I loved this book. Such an interesting take on a common theme. Also loved the cliffhanger ending - would definitely love to hear how it all pans out.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this before publication date.

I recently had the opportunity to read "Social Engagement" by Avery Carpenter Forrey, & I have some thoughts to share.
Firstly, I was immediately drawn to the book's cover, which was visually captivating & certainly piqued my interest. It set a great tone for the story within. Forrey’s writing style was engaging & kept me turning the pages. Her approach to storytelling was fresh & innovative for all the millennials out there… making it a unique reading experience. However, I found it somewhat challenging to relate to the book's themes, given that I am not a millennial. While this didn't deter my enjoyment entirely, it did create a bit of a disconnect between me & the characters.
Speaking of characters, they left a bit to be desired. They seemed to fit into the storyline but lacked a certain depth that would have made them more memorable. Despite these minor drawbacks, I did appreciate Forrey's humor throughout the book, which added a delightful layer to the narrative.
In summary, I would give "Social Engagement" by Avery Carpenter Forrey a rating of 3/5 stars. While it may not have been a perfect match for me personally, I recognize its merits & would certainly be interested in reading more from this author in the future.
Lastly, I'd like to extend my gratitude to #NetGalley, #SocialEngagement, Mariner Books, and of course, Avery Carpenter Forrey for providing me with the ARC. It's important to note that my review & opinions are entirely my own & given voluntarily.

This was not it. I was excited to read about millennial wedding culture, but it was just a huge miss. I didn't think it was humorous and the characters were just annoying. Too much body shaming going on.

I’m all for unlikeable characters, but this turned insufferable that I skimmed to finish. Mainly the fatphobia and eating disorders was so strong a focus that it took away from the storyline (for me). The characters also ran together for me, with similar characteristics; obnoxious, privileged, selfish & immature. I understand that it was supposed to be a dark (not satirical) commentary on 1% but it was a miss for me

dnf 60% - I received an advanced reader's copy of this book through Netgalley and the publisher, so I want to quickly give my thoughts even though I've decided not to finish this one.

The novel begins on our main character Callie's wedding night- 6 or 7 hours in, her marriage is over. As the rest of the book unfolds, we get a little bit closer to learning the "why" behind it, or what exactly was it that ended her marriage so seemingly abruptly. Each chapter is told in kind-of-vignettes, opening with a social media post, a caption, and a few comments left by some of the characters in the book. (My boyfriend said it's giving Victorious and I can't unsee it.) Then the chapter goes into the day of the post - so if it's a friend's engagement party or a wedding, for example, the chapter is just what happens at that particular event. To me, that seems like a cool way to play with structure, but honestly it was pretty confusing and I think the story is way too plotty for it. It gets really info-dumpy to get you back up to speed with what's happened between vignettes, something that a traditional format would solve. (Note: I was listening to this on audio, so maybe it translates better to the physical reading experience! Your mileage may vary.)

And on the topic of being too plotty, there is just way too much going on in this book. It's at once a commentary on millennial wedding culture yet also the millennial experience as a whole but also the main character's dad died and maybe/probably had an affair and also she has a best friend who is maybe/probably gay and also they were childhood friends but aren't really that close anymore but also she had a thing with that friend's cousin who also has a gf but now they broke up but also she's dating a man now but also she might still like the cousin but also she has an eating disorder and also her dead dad was a writer and she found his manuscript and wants to finish it but also she works in the end of life industry but also she draws anatomical drawings on the side but also but also but also forever. It's way too much, especially if you're going to tell it in vignettes.

I think had there been just *less stuff* going on in general, I might have had an easier time connecting with literally any of the characters, but also, I don't know about that either. They're all pretty insufferable in their own ways, and being in Callie's head is really uncomfortable and triggering in a lot of ways. As a reader, I don't typically have many (if any) triggers I really need to watch out for. But even still, I found the way that Callie constantly judges and assesses other women's bodies downright triggering. (The way she specifically zeroed in on the only woman of color was particularly icky to me.) I didn't find any of it refreshingly relatable, just uncomfortable and honestly a little stale. I have enough internalized body dysmorphia on my own, thanks so much. Callie has a severe eating disorder (so trigger warnings for that) and I hope that by the end of the book she gets the help she needs, but I just wasn't down to stick around and find out.

I was excited by the synopsis of this one so I'm bummed it didn't work for me. But I will say the prose was undeniably sharp- like almost distractingly good for what this book was trying to be. So I hope this author gives it another go because the talent is clearly there.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review! I received an e-copy but listened to the audiobook on Scribd.

2 stars.

"Social Engagement" by Avery Carpenter Forrey has a main female character who is borderline insufferable. If that's the point, Forrey succeeded, but that doesn't make her a fun person to read about! TW: this book contains many, many references to disordered eating and fatphobia. Every single female character is SO obsessed with their weight, starving themselves before weddings, talking about how much fat is packed around her organs, purging, gorging, counting calories...49% into this book, Callie says the roommate of an old fling (MMC Ollie) told her she was "too big to be a sidepiece." WHAT. My jaw dropped. Yikes. I have read so many books about upper-class uber-privileged messy, self-destructive, awful people lately that they have all started to blend together at this point. I am a bit over it. Each one seems more try-hard than the last. Some may read this as biting, clever, and smart, but I found it to be grating and infuriating. Plot points are started and left by the wayside, dynamics aren't explained fully. I started out the book liking and rooting for Callie, but quickly pivoted to hating her the longer we are with her character. She's self-absorbed, shallow, a bad friend, a worse girlfriend, a user. She's never fully "in" her relationship with her boyfriend Whit, and instead of telling him that and ending things, she cheats on him just to, what? To feel something? And then MARRIES him?! WTF!? What a jerk!! I also haaaated Ollie as a character. He treats women like consolation prizes, he's privileged, braggidocious, immature. Actually, all of the characters are unlikable and toxic and backstabbing. There are also a lot of people in this book, so I kept getting them confused because they are all selfish, rich, white brats that it was hard to keep them straight. Right when it feels like something is going to happen at the end, the book just FINISHES. When it was over, I just said "damn" because it's full of such wasted potential. This book was not for me. I love a well-done dark social commentary, but this book was just not good.

Thanks to NetGalley, Avery Carpenter Forrey, and Mariner Books for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. I was not compensated for my review.

Social Engagement by Avery Carpenter Forrey is a modern novel that not only tells Callie's story of her marriage's implosion but it also highlights our current influencer/social media culture. As the book unfolds we see Callie reviewing in photos where it might all have gone off the rails. The modern wedding culture doesn't escape examination and critique either.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. Social Engagement is available now.

I enjoyed the writing style but wished there was a stronger payoff. I felt letdown at the end but appreciated much of the character development.

This one wasn’t for me. I didn’t find the main character likeable at all. She was very self loathing. The constant need to bring up weight issues and disordered eating bothered me even though I understand it was part of the character. The ending wasn’t really an ending but rather a stop point and any time I got to a part that I actually was interested in I felt like it stopped too soon. Overall didn’t work for me, but if you like darker self loathing rich life stories, maybe you’ll like it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the ARC in exchange for my thoughts.

So much to like about this - I love a “rich people behaving badly” escapism story. The writing was crisp and smart, and the characters likably unlikable. One minor annoyance was the excessive, unnecessary brand name dropping. I also intensely dislike books that contain disordered eating, which was highly featured.

Social Engagement by Avery Carpenter Forrey was not what I expected!!! But in a great way. This is an ambitious debut novel that challenges and explores who owns art, what makes a family, millennial wedding culture, social media, and the ties that bind. We open on the night of Callie Holt's wedding when everything has gone off the rails - her marriage has imploded on the wedding night. We zoom out to meet the characters that make up Callie's world - most notably the Murphy's, a wealthy NYC family that has taken her as their own. As with any family, there are complicated webs of secrets and feelings that start to break through the surface in the days leading up to the wedding that ultimately break free and cause chaos.

Overall, I really enjoyed - I thought the book was smart and thought provoking. I wish the end was more developed, I felt like we just reached the conclusion but I didn't find it satisfying. There were also some elements about Callie's weight that I found to be unnecessary.

Social Engagement is out now! Thank you to Netgalley and Mariner Books for the ARC!

𝗦𝗢𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟 𝗘𝗡𝗚𝗔𝗚𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 by debut author Avery Carpenter Forrey has a striking start. Callie Holt is sitting in a bathtub, shoveling down a pizza in her wedding gown while her new husband lies passed out on the bed. Their young marriage is already over, and Callie traces why and how it all went so spectacularly wrong as she scrolls back over the last year on social media. Reasons abound, beginning with Callie’s near obsession with the wealthy family she grew up almost being a member of and to whom she still clings. Add to that, the many secrets she kept from those she loved the most.⁣
⁣
This was a fun little story, poking fun at over-the-top weddings obsessed with Instagram worthy photos and clever hashtags. It also had a more serious side with love stories that never quite aligned and a main character with a serious eating disorder. Callie was a character I liked at the start, felt more and more sorry for in the middle, but by the end was left with little sympathy for. I also liked Forrey’s sort of social commentary on friendship and class and how the two can make for uncomfortable bedfellows. I could have done with less of the “book within a book.” (It just didn't add much.) 𝑨𝒏𝒚𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔, I thought this was a clever debut; one that was easy to fly through. It will be a pleasure to read whatever Forrey writes next. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣
⁣
For anyone who’s read the book, did 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 bug you as much as it did me?⁣
⁣
Thanks to @marinerbooks for an electronic ARC of #SocialEngagement.

I wanted to love this book- I loved the idea of dating/weddings in Manhattan in a social media obsessed era. However, I found the characters unlikeable, and the writing was disjointed.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My Selling Pitch:
Do you want another depressed girl in NYC blows up her life over a romantic rejection book? Can you tolerate oodles of disordered eating? Do you like character studies of people that you’re not really supposed to like?

Pre-reading:
I read books for their covers, and I’ve made my peace with that. Who needs a description? Just give me a fun cover.

Thick of it:
tableau vivant

liminal

This book is lovely already.

I like winter weddings. They’re so pretty. Also, the fact that she mentioned that she picked a winter wedding to be sweatproof like yes, we are the same, my girl.

palimpsest

New England superiority (Also, I know it’s not technically part of it, but I feel like New York City has the same sort of New England vibes.)

guarantor

eschews

toile

Living in New York and having a rich friend take care of you is truly the dream. I mean, providing for yourself would be pretty cool too, but I don’t think I’d ever have a job that produces that amount of money.

pied-à-terre

I genuinely like Sally Rooney and I will not apologize for that.

No, I love rainbow shelves.

I would read these books.

I hope she finds his novel.

This girl has a real bad eating disorder.

I don’t think true crime makes me dark or interesting.

Parasite?

A piney boy. I’m starting to think I should keep track of pine versus cinnamon boys as a fun book stat.

Oh Callie, Ollie’s an ass.

I like the chapter construction-how it’s an Instagram post to begin it, and then Instagram comments at the end.

This would be very triggering to read if you have an eating disorder.

fecund

Subsumed

Oh, I just got eviscerated. I am an astrology girly with a dusty pink theme.

Letterkenny?

obfuscate

I think this is the second book that I’ve read this year that tries to give the reader dead-body facts that I weirdly already knew from an episode of Morbid.

A detritus sin in the middle of a quote that I actually quite like.

How does she not know? Isn’t it like very obvious that her dad had an affair with Mimi?

She’s wild. This man is the worst. There is nothing appealing about him. Like I get the toxic girly mentality of she’ll get self-validation if he miraculously starts to love her, but like bitch, you don’t want him. He’s fucking awful.

There is too much Taylor Swift in this book for me. I am not a Taylor Swift girly.

That was very sweet of Whit. I hate Ollie.

How are we just glossing over the bestiality?

I HATE Ollie.

GIRL. This is sadddd. Ollie’s a shit.

She and Virginia should just be a couple.

paillard

Post-reading:
I think it’s a literary darling of a book, I just wish it had more to say. There’s not much more to it than watching a woman’s slow unraveling, and that’s fine. That’s a vibe. I just needed more of a resolution. Heavy trigger warning for disordered eating. This book is graphic. It’s another one of those books that’s really just a character study of awful people. I wish there was someone within the book to root for. I don’t really root for any of them. I like the writing. I pulled a lot of quotes. The construction is unique and enjoyable. I’m just not in love with the characters or the plot. I needed a bit more than depressed girly blows up her life for men. Like where’s the comeback? Or the worse option, a descension into a revenge thriller. Instead, we get the worst of all the options, which is absolutely no resolution. I think this book should lose 50 pages about her wondering if her father had an affair and just make her come to that conclusion faster, and then add on about 100 pages with her and Virginia being a tentative lesbian couple. Also, Ollie getting his character eviscerated somehow. Give us some new character we’re supposed to admire who can’t stand him.

This isn’t an angry, sad girl book, but it is a depressed, anxious girl book. And I just want my girls with more bite.

I genuinely can’t decide if I like this book. I lean towards no, but then I also want to own it because I really like some of the quotes in it. What does that mean?

Who should read this:
Depressed, mildly privileged girlies

Do I want to reread this:
Maybe? I think it’s a good critical book club book

Similar books:
* Beautiful World Where Are You by Sally Rooney-character study of terrible people’s intertwined relationships
* Sirens and Muses by Antonia Angress-artsy fucks being terrible people
* My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh-THE angry, sad girl book, NYC vibes
* Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler-mental health crisis after romantic rejection
* Big Swiss by Jen Beagin-toxic affair with a depressed girly main character
* The Seaplane on Final Approach by Rebecca Rukeyser-musey book, girl obsessed with an awful boy
* The Lifestyle by Taylor Hahn-lady realizes she’s settled in her relationship
* Vladimir by Julia May Jonas-literary darling of a book, that I don’t like, but like quotes from it
* I Love You, But I’ve Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins-woman running from motherhood, that’s all musing, no plot

The book synopsis peaked my interest but overall this was just an okay book for me. There was nothing memorable that set it apart from other books I have read and when I was done I just had that okay feeling. There was a drawback for me and that was the sense the writer had to meet a certain word quota so used as many filler words as she could.

What’s the fastest time a marriage has imploded? This book takes you on the journey of a young women’s life through the past year to figure out where and when her 7 hour Marriage was over. She begins to scroll back on her social media feed and the story takes you to various points that happened in the past year. I liked Callie and enjoyed the authors way of telling her story. Her best friend Virginia and her cousin, Ollie were not my favorite characters but we all have those friends we want to love but maybe we shouldn’t. I just don’t think they were a good fit for Callie. Overall, it was an uniquely written story. I liked it. Many thanks to Mariner Books and NetGalley for the digital review copy of this novel. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.