Ellipses follows Lily as she grapples with her identity working in the corporate world. She finds herself in a mentorship with B, a powerful woman in the beauty industry, which makes her life more complicated.

I found the plot a little bit all over the place and the ending a tad overwhelming but overall was interesting seeing Lily’s world.

I’m of the optimistic opinion that nearly every book has value. Some books are great on their own merit. Others fall short of the highest praise but have one or two elements that appeal to your unique tastes. Some are light and enjoyable; others are a slog to get through but leave a nice aftertaste upon completing them. There’s another category, however, which is that rare book that causes you to appreciate another more through its inadequacy.“Salt books,” if you will. You wouldn’t eat a pinch of salt, but sprinkled over a nice stew, it really brings out the flavor, doesn’t it?

Ellipses by Vanessa Lawrence falls within that last category.

A few months ago, I read the highly-praised Alice Sadie Celine by Sarah Blakley-Cartwright. At the time, I was underwhelmed by the book that Kirkus Reviews praised for its “lighthearted romp, melancholic tone, and critique of sexual mores.” However, after reading Ellipses, I feel that I may have been too harsh. Vanessa Lawrence’s attempt at capturing a similar dynamic (queer women, mentor-mentee relationship, dubious sexual mores) left a much more sour taste in my mouth.

At roughly 20%, I noted: “what is the point of any of this?” This is Vanessa Lawrence’s debut, so I was prepared for some amount of debut hiccups — overabundance of unnecessary detail; telling rather than showing; plot contrivances — and those were present, to be sure. However, I feel the largest problem with this book is the lack of confidence in the writer’s own craft. Put simply: this is a book that does not trust its readers.

People are messy. We do things for selfish, petty reasons. We lie to our partners, our friends, and ourselves. When you write character-driven literary fiction “set in the glossy world of New York City media,” I expect a certain amount of moral complexity. I am an adult; I understand that the views of the author do not represent the views of the characters. I can read about characters doing morally questionable things without assuming those are the views of the author. I repeat these mantras not only to ward off any potential criticisms of my critique, but to assert that I do not need multi-paragraph diatribes explaining why characters’ actions are wrong immediately following those actions in-text.

Early in the plot, our heroine, Lily, 32-going-on-23 (seriously, this woman did not act like a woman in her thirties. If this was meant to be a character trait, I have no idea what purpose it served) does some light cyberstalking of her mentor-cum-crush, makeup mogul Billie Ashton, and discovers a decades-old article about Billie’s takeover of a rival company. The rival CEO gushes about Billie’s “women-supporting-women” energy, only to immediately be deposed and replaced after the paperwork is signed. Lily (yes, their names rhyme) goes through all five stages of grief over this fairly banal corporate merger: she’s angry at Billie for weaponizing feminism; she wonders if Billie would face the same scrutiny if she were a man; she berates herself for caring what Billie did years ago, long before they were even in the same circles; she feels her view of Billie shaken; etc. etc. All of these conflicting reactions are not left up to the reader to mull over. They are spelled out, explicitly, in agonizing detail, over the subsequent pages.

My note reads simply: Why????

Our heroine, Lily, is a passive character. She is someone who decisions happen to. She does not make them herself. Despite this, her internal monologue seems to have opinions on everything, from veganism to colorism to meritocracy in media circles, fashion, the future of print media, the optics of operating as a bisexual woman in lesbian spaces - at a certain point, I was exhausted. When a friend of hers from college mulls over the possibility of marrying his partner, Lily assures the reader “there is nothing wrong with this… [however] he might always wonder if [the decision] was motivated by a hidden need to assimilate.” Huh? This point seemingly comes from nowhere. We have no idea why Lily might feel this way. We have no idea if her friend feels this way. Like so many other ideas, it appears at random and disappears just as quickly. We know from Lily’s conflict with her girlfriend, Alison, that Lily is a commitment-phobe; is fear of assimilation a reason why? Fuck if I know. I’m not even sure if the author does.

Which brings me to another — well, I’m not sure if I can call it a critique, exactly. Comment, perhaps? Our main character is a bisexual woman of color (biracial; her mother is from Shanghai and her father is white) working in New York City as a society pages writer for a women’s magazine. At the end of Ellipses, she quits her unfulfilling society pages job to publish a semi-autobiographical novel about her relationship with a toxic older woman. Vanessa Lawrence is an East Asian writer working in New York City who previously worked the society beat. This is her first novel. Is this autofiction? If so, this would explain some of my complaints about Lily’s inner monologue. Normally, I don’t like to speculate on authors’ private lives, but when the author and her main character were even published in the same magazines (Women’s Wear Daily), well….

One does wonder.

Aside from the larger structural flaws, I have a few minor nitpicks. The abundance of detail, as I mentioned earlier, began to drive me up the wall. By the fifth time I’d read a multi-sentence description of haute couture at a black tie event, I was exhausted. Description is good! Description helps us to fill out the world of the narrative! But what purposes does describing gorgeous gowns at an event full of gorgeous gowns tell us? Why do we, the readers, need to know that the annoying unnamed vegan model wore a turquoise gown and that Annabelle, another minor character (there are many minor characters; another one of my notes: who is this person???) carries a hot pink clutch? Why does Lily’s narration tell us she rolls up her sleeves because she’s hot, only for the book to repeat this information twice more in the next three sentences?

The order and frequency of information matters. When you craft a narrative, deploying character-building details 80% of the way through your novel is confusing. Revealing plot points in a frankly unnecessary prologue is juvenile. Sentences are crumbs: sometimes we find our way out of the forest. Sometimes, all we have are the scraps.

And sometimes, we don’t even have scraps. Sometimes, we just have the salt.

[My review will be live on March 05. This post is scheduled to go up on my blog and will be public then.]

Ellipses really failed to live up to my expectations when it came to the "toxic" mentor/mentee's relationship. A huge sell for me, I expected to feel the toxicity and the high stakes off the page as I read. Instead, I found myself living Lily's day-to-day in the most mundane way possible.

Vanessa Lawrence is clearly a gifted writer, but I really struggled with some of her prose. Oftentimes, while I did find myself enjoying the book and wanting to read it, my mind would wander and when I came back to I really hadn't missed anything of importance. She took great care in writing very vividly, but that really took away from a better crafted relationship between Lily and B. I acknowledge that maybe that was the point: B was ever elusive and distant; nothing more than a buzz in Lily's phone promising her a connection before fluttering away before it ever came to fruition. However that didn't actually make for the toxic relationship I was expecting (and began to hope for).

The lack of true stakes in Lily's life when it came to B made it all fall very flat for me in the end. SPOILERS AHEAD: Lily was never at risk of losing her job or her relationship because of B. B was never a real threat in any real sense of the word, even emotionally as we are made to want to believe. B was just there. The exchanges were dry and offered nothing more, nothing less to the plot. Why include B's "accidental" dildo photo if there were no true repercussions? Alison doesn't find out, Lily doesn't confront B, B doesn't try to lure Lily into asking about it... again, what was the point?

I wanted to finish Ellipses and I am glad I did. I am afraid it won't be memorable enough of a novel for me to want to reread it in the future. With the expectation that Lily and B's relationship delves into something toxic, it felt like a letdown to not see that come to fruition.

Thank you Penguin/Dutton, Vanessa Lawrence, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

Lily is a woman in her thirties who works as a magazine writer New York City, where she writes about and interviews influencers, actresses, and fashion designers. But the print magazine she writes for is not going that well in sales, and the bosses of the magazine move more and more to the website of the magazine and to social media. Lily feels at a standstill in her work life, where she has to deal with racial micro aggression because she is half Asian and personal life, where she is dating her girlfriend Alison. When she attends a gala for Alzheimer in Manhattan for the magazine, a woman names Billy Astor who is a big name in the glossy magazine scene, rolls down her town car window and offers Lily a ride home and mentorship. Lily and Billy start a connection, where Billy becomes a mentor of Lily to help her writing career in the right direction. Lily hopes. But the texts slowly start to influence Lily's life in a toxic and unhealthy way.
The storyline of Ellipses starts very promising. Lily feels like a woman with a lot of problems, where every other person might think of as minimal problems. Her work life is not very problematic it seems, and her love life with Alison is less problematic as Lily portrays it. (I think that Alison was very kind and more stabile in her actions than Lily)

Then over to the text mentorship she has with this Billy person (it is not very detailed described who this Billy is, is she a stylish but rude magazine editor in chief like Miranda Priestley in The Devil Wears Prada, does she has good intentions or not? The reader has clearly has to find this out herself, to never get a real answer on this Billy's person. The ending truly leaves you with even more questions, as everything Lily seemed to want the whole book long, she gets presented on a silver plate by Billy, and then...she refuses it all!! It truly left me wondering why the author made this choice in the story The storyline and the ending, it all was okay but it felt repetitive at many points when Lily had a problem with work or with Alison and went to a text with Billy for some guidance, where Lily mostly doesn't agree with anyway. If Lily was more likeable character with some more self confidence I would have liked her and her story more. It truly would have added more to the story if we also read Billy's point of view Shortly said, I had expected more of this book.

Fair warning to anyone who’s worked in or around women’s magazines for the last 10 years, that reading Vanessa Lawrence’s Ellipses might give you a smidge of PTSD. It certainly had me cringing at my memories of the out of touch, real-life editors who acted exactly the way they’re depicted in her debut novel.

I loved (and loathed, a little!) the realism on display, because Lawrence absolutely nails the toxicity of the gilded, glossy world of New York City’s elite media scene. That being said, ultimately it's less the razor-edged examination of a toxic female power dynamic I was expecting, than it is a meandering slice of life starring a frustrated, stagnated, queer magazine writer.

Ellipses by Vanessa Lawrence was a pretty good literary fiction story.
A thought-provoking debut. And one I really enjoyed reading.
Lawrence’s writing is so easy to follow that I flew through the book.
This book is interesting, entertaining, witty, and compelling. I’m so happy to have read my first Vanessa Lawrence novel.
I will most definitely pick up Vanessa’s next title as I did enjoy her writing.

Thank You NetGalley and Dutton for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I am so thankful to DuttonBooks, Vanessa Lawrence, and Netgalley for granting me advanced access to this laughable yet serene novel before it hits shelves on March 5, 2024. I was such a fan of the prose and can't wait for others to check this one out.

The best analogy for this book would be the the way protagonist Lily's girlfriend Alison watches queer films: looking for something that doesn't fall into stereotypical tropes...but ending up always disappointed. When I saw this book in Vogue's 2024 Most-Anticipated novels list, I was intrigued by the premise of a queer main character and her developing relationship with a mentor. However, this relationship just never felt truly engaging, even when it verged into toxic territory. The pacing dragged on and the dialogue was interrupted repeatedly by sometimes pages-long flashbacks or descriptions breaking in after the first sentence of a conversation.

As part of the popular genre of "young woman in fast-paced industry comes to a reckoning" (from The Devil Wears Prada to The Assistants and The Other Black Girl, among many many others), I really wanted this to bring something new and fresh to the table, but it ended up just rehashing old tropes and telling, not showing, examples of Lily's journey from oppressed magazine writer to published author. As things moved towards the conclusion, it feels increasingly meta (former glossy magazine writer pens debut novel about being a queer multi-racial woman...sounds familiar...) and while it does wrap up most of its plot threads in a satisfying way, there was nothing special or new that stuck with me beyond the last page.

Lily is in her thirties, working for a fairly reputable fashion magazine that is slowly decaying along with the rest of the publishing industry, and... is a bit lost. She's unhappy, yet uncertain what to do next. Or if there's a thing to do next. In the midst of this identify crisis, she meets Billie Astor, sophisticated, well-known make-up industrty magnate. Billie offers to mentor her, and thus embarks a texting interchange that will change Lily forever.
In the end, it really didn't click with me. I felt like the story was very repetitive. It goes; Lily texts Billie after a situation at work and then Billie texts back with some
tough love that Lily doesn't agree with. I think that if we had more in-person moments between the two it would've broken up the monotony of just the texts. I felt that the relationships in this book weren't very compelling to me.

A chance meeting changes Lily's life in this coming of age/toxic relationship story. Lily's struggling in the evolving media landscape and in her romantic life so when Billie, a rich and powerful woman begins to text her, she's all in. Except that Billy's a lot older and she doesn't seem to have any compunctions about what she does to others. It's an interesting look at the media world but more so about the power dynamic. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

Prepare to follow Lily, journalist who catches the attention of beauty executive Billie, the older woman in the setting of the New York elite. In the beginning, I fell into the author’s storytelling with the use of metaphors, adjectives, and, at times, the scenes could be quite descriptive.
Lily could be an unlikeable character, jaded and defensive, always ready to contradict whatever a person said to her. At times, she came across as self sabotaging and insufferable for her life, and it made me wonder why a lot, as I don’t think the author gave enough attention as to why, In the end, I really don’t think I am the target market for this book. This is an easy read, good transitions and even pacing. If you pick this up, just be prepared for a lot of negativity, specifically coming from the main character.

The plot is everything I knew I would love in a book, a writer working in the magazine industry, stuck between writing pieces that she does not care for, she meets a beauty executive B at an event and B is intrigued with her writing, offers her advice on it, and we take off. But I did not enjoy this book the way I thought I would, I kept wanting to give up because we have B who is so damn hard on Lily, and then Lily dealing with her own things, there was just a lot going on. It gave me Under the Influence by Noelle Crooks, which I also didn’t enjoy. I know there are readers out there who would love this book, but it was not for me.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

This is the kind of extremely niche industry perspective novels that might as well be autobiographical that attract literary awards buzz. It just wasn't for me. I really wanted to like this, the ingredients were all there, and yet it felt indulgent and rambling. It feels like in every instance the author could have delved deeper into the intersectional commentaries that were right there for the picking, instead decided to languish in the inane atmosphere of their comfort. Ironic that this is ostensibly about an editor and I am baffled one didn't root for this to be at least half the length. The characters are extremely and transparently flattened through the protagonist's baby steps to some epiphany. Or perhaps the jaded glitz of fashion and beauty magazines in NYC is just never a world that will feel relatable to me. Not even for the sapphics, but I tried.

Unfortunately, this did not live up to the premise for me. The premise: Lily is a magazine writer trying to further her career and dreading the encroachment of digital on her dream profession. Billie is a cosmetics mogul known for her diva antics and cold demeanor. After a chance encounter, Billie decides to take Lily under her wing and mentor her through her career struggles.

The reality: a slog of a novel with endless complaining about digital killing off print magazines that feels decades old in 2024 and a lot of telling us this mentorship is toxic without showing any real toxicity.

The writing was good and it seems like this might be personal for Lawrence, so hopefully with this story out of her system, she can move on to more interesting topics.

I won't lie to you, people on the other side of this Netgalley feedback, I dnf'd this. I thought I was going to enjoy it, but Lily just got on my nerves to the point where I couldn't handle it anymore. The premise was strong, but I just wasn't feeling the execution.

It was REALLY hard to like Lily. The micro aggressions brought back almost every interaction with my previous supervisor.
Having this entire novel take place via text is a great idea, and the plot was good, but the ending fell a bit flat.

Unfortunately, I didn't end up enjoying this as much as I thought I would. While it was an interesting look into publishing and being a 30-something in NYC, I expected something different. I wish more time had been spent fleshing out the toxic mentorship (as it didn't even really come off as that toxic or important) and less time in the main character's head listening to her complain about the same things over and over. I do think the writing was great, and am looking forward to more from this author, I just think this one didn't deliver what it had promised.

ELLIPSES unfortunately didn't quite live up to its premise for me. I enjoyed the commentary on the fashion and magazine worlds and the difficulty of carving out a career as a young person. However, the dynamic between Lily and B never pushed the power dynamic far enough for me, leaving me wondering why Lily felt so caught up in the relationship. What felt like an explosive scene at the beginning of the novel felt like a deflation when we arrived back at it at the end of the novel since that relationship never really got much depth.

Such a shame!

I had such high hopes for this novel, unfortunately the overall story felt incomplete. Even though I didn't love this book, it's still worth reading. The writing is superb. Vanessa Lawrence has a beautiful and exciting prose. Lawrence just needs to work on creating a stronger and memorable storyline. I wasn't inspired by the plot. The writing pretty much saved this book. Lily was a great protagonist, but I detested Billie. Billie was so unlikeable and wooden. I wanted so much more, but this book left me feeling deflated towards the end. It's a mixed bag for me.

Ellipses was such an interesting book and concept for me. Lily, a young woman frustrated in her career, develops a strange mentorship and relationship with an older woman who has been a pioneer in her field. I enjoyed the discussions of race within the workplace and the toxicity between Lily and B.