MixedThe Washington PostGreenwood’s depictions of the media industry are painfully funny, and familiar to anyone who has covered news abroad ... Sometimes stretches credulity: Despite occasional flashbacks to an unpleasant father and an emotionally abusive ex, it’s not clear why Sara is as broken or destructive as she is ... The book succeeds more as a story about a damaged industry: Greenwood is at her best when she’s skewering the media ... But the second half of the novel is so bleak that one finishes reading it with an ambiguous feeling. The incisive, albeit dark humor of the first half gets overrun by ever-greater cynicism ... What starts out as a satirical critique gives way to a scorched-earth assault.
MixedThe Los Angeles TimesRuncie...has created something so delightfully snackable that you may, as I did, gulp it down in two or three sittings ... One flaw with Runcie’s novel is that this is something we are repeatedly told, rather than shown ... Hayley, unfortunately, never quite comes to life ... The result feels like a missed opportunity to interrogate some important questions ... Readers may leave Runcie’s novel feeling that some of these questions go unanswered, but this deeply entertaining novel is nonetheless well worth the price of admission.
