Worry is cold hard proof that people with anxiety are the funniest. There were so many parts where I felt seen and others where I laughed out loud. The main characters felt so relatable and I identified a lot with them.

If you’re a fan of Melissa Broader or Odessa Moshfegh, I think you’d really like Worry.

When I received this copy of Worry from @scriberbooks I chuckled at the cover and said something like "relatable". What I found inside was dark, absurd, and difficult to look away from. Worry is the story of two twenty something sisters turned roommates navigating life in NYC, being online, family dysfunction, and...existential dread.

In her debut, Tanner bares the young millennial soul out on the page for the reader to relate, cringe, scowl, and honestly, want to bang our heads against the wall. This was equal parts wild, raw, shocking, and, at times, warm and tender. I think this is going to have a wide range of reviews, especially because of that ending, but regardless of how you feel, you likely won't be able to look away. This publishes March 26th and I can't wait to hear what you think.

I DNF'd about 20% of the way through. I just couldn't get into the book which was sad because this was an anticipated read for me. I felt that a lot of nothing was happening and was skimming more and more as the pages went on. I decided to DNF and maybe come back to it in the future rather than completely ruin my reading of it by forcing myself to continue with it. I understand books like this are character-driven and often slower and less plot-heavy, but I felt that nothing was happening in this book, and the characters weren't entertaining enough to keep my interest.

So much of this felt like reading a book about my mother and sister and all of our dynamics which was strange but cathartic. The ending really threw me

I definitely feel like I'm in the minority here. I'm normally all for a sad girl literary fiction novel with no plot and just vibes, but this one just didn't do it for me.

Worry picks up on the day Poppy moves in with her older sister Jules in Brooklyn. Poppy, in the last year, tried to commit suicide, and decided to leave living with her parents in Florida to make it on her own. We follow the sisters as they navigate that first year together, learning how they interact with each other and how their family dynamics work. Jules is obsessed with "internet mommies" so much that she creates a separate account just to stalk them with. Poppy has chronic illnesses that keep her from living a fully carefree life. Together, they have a very unhealthy relationship--they brutalize each other verbally and then make up in the next breath. They compete with each other, tear each other down on purpose, and then step back to apologize. It felt like a whiplash. And then we meet their toxic mother, the definition of a narcissist, and someone who made my blood boil every time she was on the page.

I give this novel credit for making me viscerally react to these characters, but this just felt like watching a train wreck of dysfunctional people abuse each other for the sake of hurting. There were times when I laughed out loud or giggled (this book has a lot of dialogue, and most of it is interesting if not entertaining), but my overall enjoyment of this was very limited. I've realized that I don't enjoy reading stories like this--where everyone is constantly belittling one another because they are all so profoundly unhappy; Go to therapy and be better to each other!

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. This title publishes March 26, 2024.

This book has no real plot, so you have to really care about the characters in order to keep reading it. And for me, there were two compelling threads that made this book fascinate and destroy me emotionally. 1) A pair of sisters who simultaneously love/hate each other and can move quickly from slinging the most vile gut-wrenching insults, to exhibiting great care for someone they know better than anyone. 2) Parents who are ANYWHERE near the world of essential oil MLMs, sex trafficking hysteria, or right-wing political conspiracies.

In conclusion, ouch. This book was painfully relatable for me and I'm deducting a star for the ending (without spoiling) because it made me upset.

Check CWs/TWs before reading!

I never really got it when people said a book is “raw,” but I get it now. This book is raw. It feels way too real. It’s no plot all vibes. Jules feels like a tangible, real person. I felt immensely seen in the mundane points. The most outlandish points of the book felt all too authentic. Alexandra Tanner demonstrates a mastery of lit fic.

I’m torn on how I should rate this book. I wouldn’t say I loved it, but I didn’t dislike it either. If I had to describe the novel in a single sentence I’d say it was a portrait of modern technology addicted millennials with mommy issues and a healthy dose of burnt-out apathy. And to be fair, this is where many real individuals of that generation are sitting in this day and age.

"Poppy’s ideas about dead art, to me, are just as numbing as the ideas in the play. The shows I watch are dead. The middling novels I take apart bit by tiny bit for Booksmarts are dead. Dead art is everywhere. Dead art is my life. By the time we get inside, I’m exhausted."

The novel follows Jules and her younger sister Poppy, who has moved into her NYC apartment. The sisters have a very mercurial relationship, most likely thanks to the awful relationship they share with their mother. It feels as if their mother purposefully sows discord between the sisters because if they pull away from each other, perhaps they’ll value her time and ideas more. Their mother very much wants to maintain a position of power over her daughters and is extremely narcissistic. While both sisters had definitely dealt with a childhood full of emotional acrobatics, I believe, even though the younger of the two, Poppy was beginning the process of healing and trying to move past her traumas and struggles. Jules on the other hand was very much stuck in a rut. Between the lack of enthusiasm with her career, dissatisfaction with her perceived lack of life accomplishments, a dependency on social media and internet memes to drown out the overwhelming press of the problems around her, Jules has a lot of aspects of her personality that many could relate to. I didn’t really like Jules as a person though, I think because you could see throughout the novel that she wasn’t really trying to make an effort to improve her life. Not to mention how purposefully mean she could be towards her sister. This very likely is from mental health struggles, but it was still frustrating not to see any growth from her. I was really hoping to see the sisters grow closer in a positive way, or to at least see Jules gain a tiny sense of direction. That’s often how life goes though, so I can’t fully fault the novel’s message for that disappointment of mine.
The ending was abrupt and to many, may seem incomplete, but it fits in with the rest of the novel and it’s commentary on the bleakness of a society where we are so bombarded and overwhelmed with struggles from every angle that sometimes all we can do is numb ourselves to those issues with whatever distractions are available.

This was a hard one to get through. Definitely just vibes and monoliths. If you like witty banter if gen x and sisters. You like this.

Genuinely don’t ever think I’ve cackled out loud reading something as I did while reading Worry.

The amount of quotes I shared with my sister because of how relatable and hilarious I found this story is unreal.

If you’re a chronically online girlie going through a quarter life crisis and have a younger sister (or sibling in general), you need to read this.

Definitely looking forward to reading more by Alexandra Tanner!!

Thank you NetGalley and Scriber for an ARC of this book exchange for my honest review!

This book is positively full of awful people who are somehow embarrassingly relatable at the same time. Main characters and sisters Jules and Poppy are complicated and terrible but totally, unrelentingly human. The timing of their story is perfect because we know the pandemic is around the corner and they will have no choice but to cohabitate and all of this fighting about it is for nothing. I'm sad it's over! I laughed a lot! I'll miss my deranged little sisters. Looking forward to what Tanner writes next.

I breezed through this in a few days! Such a great depiction of millennial Jewish Brooklyn transplant ennui. I wanted to pull my hair out, or break out in hives, and hug the girls at the same time. Hope there’s more to come!

I loved this book. It showcased and encompassed the reality of two awkward sisters with a terrible family dynamic. The dialogue felt real and uncomfortable-which is what lit fic is supposed to do. The shocking ending was enough for me to deem this an instant classic.

Twenty-something sisters Jules and Poppy end up as roommates in a small NYC apartment. Through a series of misadventures and one disastrous trip home for Thanksgiving, they try to find their footing together.

I think this book will really resonate with a certain audience, but I don’t think I am that audience.

I would definitely give Tanner another try. Her writing was very fast paced and chaotic (in a good way), and I really enjoyed the witty dialogue. There was a lot of super relatable existential dread packed in, and I could definitely understand the sort of plateau Jules was feeling.

My biggest problem was just that there was no real character development. Every time I thought the sisters were about to figure it out together, they immediately reverted back to how they started. I really wanted there to be some sort of dive into their relationship with their mother and how that impacted their relationships with each other, but it just never came.

The ending also felt a little off to me. It was just a very strange place to end it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC!

I really enjoyed this book! The characters had depth and conflicting emotions and seemed so real. Even the main character's irrational thoughts made sense to me as far as how she got to that thought. I wish there was like 2 more paragraphs at the end because it had such an unsatisfying ending but literally all the way up to that I was having a good time reading.

Cannot rave about this book enough, I screamed so loud when I got approved for it haha. I think I have a massive soft spot for books about complicated family relationships, especially between siblings. This book had so much heart and realness to it that I haven't read in so long. The relationship between the two sisters was so fun to read, and made me want to go give my brother a huge hug. Within the first 15%, I knew it was going to be a 5 star read. It's an amazing debut from Alexandra Tanner, and I can't wait for everyone to get to read it soon! Great book. Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for this title!

Intrigued by the premise, I devoured this story of two sisters who end up living together after one breaks up with her boyfriend and the other is looking for a fresh start. Tanner’s prose is easily digested and will make any millennial and really anyone who is -online- laugh, cringe and wonder if the novel was written for you. As an older sibling with a sister 20 months younger than me, I identified with Jules (even though I hated it) and felt deeply for Poppy who sometimes reminded me of my sister. There can be so much joy in being a sibling but you can also be so incredibly mean to each other. It’s important to remember that just because someone is there, it doesn’t mean they have to be. This was a four star read for me until the ending…I just didn’t get it. I’ll definitely pick up whatever Tanner writes next though.

‘Worry’ is like if scrolling on your phone was a book. l think this caused me to be detached from the story the way I am detached scrolling on my phone. ‘Worry’ is full of existential millennial dread and self-deprecating humor, and I think it does those things very well. The characters aren’t necessarily likeable, and growth is not something they are familiar with. I thought the exploration of family dynamics was the most compelling part of this book. I wish there had been more growth or more resolution in the end. I know this book is going to be beloved by many, but I don’t think this one landed for me.

I don’t think that the humor, politics, memes, relationships, etc. of my generation have ever been put on page as accurately as they have been in this book.
We follow two sisters who have recently moved in together in New York. Jules is the oldest, and our narrator. As the oldest sister myself, I related to her so much when it comes to feeling like your younger sibling is not only looking up to you, but kind of stealing your life. As hard as that is to admit bc let’s be honest, it’s a little selfish… but, it’s true. Poppy is the younger sister in this book, and she has so many problems. She suffers from depression -they both do, really- and flares into hives with no discerning trigger.
We follow the two sisters as they navigate living together and being together almost 24/7 whether in person or texting. They are always connected, even if they don’t want to be.
Their mom is an absolutely unbearable narcissist, their father puts up with it bc he thinks he’s a Jewish feminist. Jules especially is torn between confronting her mother on her bs or trying to salvage what little there is of that abusive relationship. There’s so much and not much going on all at the same time.
This book tackles internet obsession, disgusting mommy bloggers, sister relationships, extreme depression, being in your 20’s and not knowing wtf is going on, and childhood trauma with a tone of humor and dismissal that is like nothing I’ve ever read before.
The ending felt a little disjointed and strange, but still a fun read that didn’t feel like reading at all. It felt like a conversation with my own sister, who I should probably call more. Also, justice for Amy.

The bond between sisters is the focal point of this novel and it is explored in a way that is both honest and heartbreaking. It is well- written, believable and impossible to forget.