Peck & Peck is stuffed to the brim with plot and characters too numerous to mention here, which snap together delightfully. There are unexpected surprises and sweet connections. This all makes for a rollicking good story ... If her last book made you love chemistry, this one might just make you fall for poetry. Such is the force of happiness.
Peck & Peck, the poetry journal, seemed to me at first to be not just from another planet, but one outside our solar system ... Peck & Peck employs 39 editors, far more than The Atlantic Monthly, and gets thousands of submissions per month. You’ve heard of romantasy, the current hot-running lifeblood of the publishing industry; Garmus may have produced our first poemantasy ... A very busy, fizzy novel ... There is strangely little poetry.
Has many of the qualities that made Lessons in Chemistry charming—quirky characters, an aphoristic way with words (Garmus worked as an ad copywriter), and a buoyant absurdity that (usually) carries the reader past the sketchier bits of its plot. What it eschews, however, is a premise as commercial as Lesson’s, for which Garmus deserves some respect. As tempting as it may be to repeat herself, Garmus strikes out for fresh territory ... Garmus seems to think that she needs to ladle gooey dollops of sentimentality into her fiction every now and then to please the cheap seats, and to be fair, perhaps she’s not wrong about that ... A genuinely funny book that at its best moments achieves an almost Wodehousian giddiness, even if Garmus lacks the master’s superb discipline and economy.
Laugh-out-loud funny – and a paean to the power of poetry ... Though it sags a little in the middle, the result is a story that mostly zips along, and a resoundingly impassioned case for the importance of poetry in a profit-obsessed society that would gladly condemn it to extinction ... It is impossible not to be beguiled by Garmus’s irrepressible humour and the freewheeling exuberance of her imagination. It is hard to imagine a novel with more laugh-out-loud jokes about typography, harder still to dismiss her fierce exhortation to all of us to make words count.
Peck & Peck certainly has its strong points, with scene setting so effective that surely a screen adaptation is in the works. Yet for all that wonder, and a hopeful start, the novel remains hollow; the Peck & Peck offices might be brought to life, but its inhabitants remain cardboard cutouts.
Some fans may fear that Garmus can’t create another story as tender, captivating, or triumphant as her 2022 hit, Lessons in Chemistry. But good news—she can, in a book both poignant and heartwarming ... In this vividly drawn tale, readers will feel all the emotions Gray does and suffer through his confusion, desperation, and finally, his exhilaration, as he discovers and understands who he is. A stunning novel.
Batter’s story provides a reflection on the intersections of art, originality, capital and culture. It is about how to decide when to use one’s voice, and about what stories we value. Plus, it’s a fun read, with surprising characters, swift action and lively, vivid descriptions of these most self-serious of people and their lofty, and possibly noble, pursuit of art.
A funny, tender tale about a character finding himself and defining his worth. Readers who enjoy quirky stories with fully realized characters, reminiscent of the show Only Murders in the Building, will love this book.
Tender-hearted ... The story runs a bit too long, but in its unorthodox workplace, Garmus has crafted a canny analogy of the era’s ruthless corporate culture, which Batter can’t escape even by devoting his life to poetry. The author also packs the novel with the antic humor and colorful characterizations that drew readers to her debut. There’s much to cherish in this charming tale.
