Im always a big fan of awful characters being awful, but the way this author tells this story is really captivating!

And even though I didn’t like some of these characters, I was still a bit disappointed with what happens to them in the end. Alicia says that maybe she should print out a photo of Jen’s face and tape it over her own while they have sex,” begins the novel (page 5). I’m so tired of these experimental, avant-garde, genre bending novels that turn out to be a muddled, unfocused mess. Also, wow, the dialogue in this story is amazing, as is the way Morgan captures the tiny self-editing/self-blaming/self-conscious thoughts we all have when in conversation with our fellow human beings. I loved the twists and turns it had, and i havent been able to stop thinking about it since I finished it.I had to laugh when Alicia, needing to learn how to pick the right drill bit for a project, tries to watch a YouTube video to learn how.

Once there, Remy and Alicia try to fit into Jen’s social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface, threatening to erupt. so many WTH moments later, the story’s direction whirl around just like a car jumps off a cliff and repeat that action over and over again. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia's entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and New Age mantra they know by heart. When private citizens conduct their lives in public, posing and pleading for our attention, who can blame us for watching, for liking, for indulging in the abundant supply of their influence? While A Touch of Jen starts as a typical millennial literary realist novel, in the second half it becomes a full-blown horror novel featuring plenty of “stylized violence,” as Remy would say.Indirectly, Remy’s desire and the magnitude of his “fate” have truly actualized this monster, which destroys his apartment and the two people in his life who have been genuine friends to him, Jake and Carla.

Twisting and contorting reality to fit a narrative that makes sense of all the parts and pieces and horrifying amalgamations of “toxic antagonists,” he ultimately forms a psychotic conclusion. It’s starts off with Alicia and Remy cyber stalking a former coworker of Remy’s, Jen, who they incorporate into their sex life. These pages and Beth Morgan’s creative writing are full of surprises and breaks the mold of a traditional story.Can authenticity even exist in our highly social world, in which we are constantly navigating the perceptions others have of us? Every Signifier (lol inside joke if you read the book) was so meticulously chosen that once you ruminated over the ending of the book, it does make a lot of sense.

Also, one of the other main characters supposedly had brain damage as a kid and everything about the treatment of that feels. The bravery of Beth Morgan, to take this story to the places she did, reminds me of where Flannery O'Connor took Wise Blood or more recently, where Hari Kunzru took White Tears.They take her up on a casual invite to go surfing in Montauk with some friends and her rich, handsome boyfriend.