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kelly_e's review against another edition
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Title: The Authenticity Project
Author: Clare Pooley
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 2.50
Pub Date: February 4, 2020
T H R E E • W O R D S
Crass • Simple • Cliché
📖 S Y N O P S I S
Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian believes that most people aren't really honest with each other. But what if they were? And so he writes--in a plain, green journal--the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It's run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves--and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica's Café.
💭 T H O U G H T S
The Authenticity Project was chosen as my in-person book club pick for the month of May. And I was actually really excited by the synopsis and another story with an elderly main characters and about unlikely friendships - elements I typically love. Due to time constraints, I listened to the majority audio, and it 100% impacted my experience negatively.
The concept was so clever! There were so many aspects I should have loved, but it was honestly a struggle to get through it. None of the characters were all that likeable and it felt like the author simply chose some of her favourite stereotypes and tossed them together to produce this novel. Then through in one flawless character to tie everyone together. Some of the scenarios were just so unbelievable.
I expected the notebook to play a larger role. It is what gets the ball rolling, yet eventually its more about the relationships between the characters than people revealing their painful truths. For me, it would have worked better with smaller glimpses into the lives of a larger number of characters. The character development wasn't all that great with the smaller cast, so I don't see how a larger cast would have changed anything. There's a lot of book here and so much room for emotional depth, but it never went there.
One of my biggest issues was the romance. It felt so grossly contrived and the lack of communication and unhappy relationships drove me to speed things up to simply get through it. I honestly didn't care about the romance, at all.
And that brings me to the audiobook which was cringey. With so many characters, it was a lot to ask of one narrator. I had a hard time differentiating between whose POV I was listening to and the characterizations were that good at all. I honestly wish I hadn't listened to it because it ruined a lot for me.
The Authenticity Project was such a clever idea, yet the execution was poor. I am definitely in the minority, so if it's something that sounds interesting to you, I highly suggest finding out for yourself. I should have switched to eyeball reading, and maybe, I would have liked it better. Although I didn't love this one, I'd definitely give Clare Pooley another chance.
📚 R E A D • I F • Y O U • L I K E
• slice-of-life stories
• endings tied up with a bow
⚠️ CW: mental illness, addiction, drug use, drug abuse, alcohol, alcoholism, death, death of parent, grief, cancer, outing, homophobia, infidelity, cursing, sexual content, suicidal thoughts
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"The truth often isn't pretty. It's not aspirational. It doesn't fit neatly into a little square on Instagram."
"Surely it would be better to live a messy, flawed, sometimes not very pretty life that was real and honest, than to constantly try to live up to a life of perfection that was actually a sham?"
Author: Clare Pooley
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 2.50
Pub Date: February 4, 2020
T H R E E • W O R D S
Crass • Simple • Cliché
📖 S Y N O P S I S
Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian believes that most people aren't really honest with each other. But what if they were? And so he writes--in a plain, green journal--the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It's run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves--and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica's Café.
💭 T H O U G H T S
The Authenticity Project was chosen as my in-person book club pick for the month of May. And I was actually really excited by the synopsis and another story with an elderly main characters and about unlikely friendships - elements I typically love. Due to time constraints, I listened to the majority audio, and it 100% impacted my experience negatively.
The concept was so clever! There were so many aspects I should have loved, but it was honestly a struggle to get through it. None of the characters were all that likeable and it felt like the author simply chose some of her favourite stereotypes and tossed them together to produce this novel. Then through in one flawless character to tie everyone together. Some of the scenarios were just so unbelievable.
I expected the notebook to play a larger role. It is what gets the ball rolling, yet eventually its more about the relationships between the characters than people revealing their painful truths. For me, it would have worked better with smaller glimpses into the lives of a larger number of characters. The character development wasn't all that great with the smaller cast, so I don't see how a larger cast would have changed anything. There's a lot of book here and so much room for emotional depth, but it never went there.
One of my biggest issues was the romance. It felt so grossly contrived and the lack of communication and unhappy relationships drove me to speed things up to simply get through it. I honestly didn't care about the romance, at all.
And that brings me to the audiobook which was cringey. With so many characters, it was a lot to ask of one narrator. I had a hard time differentiating between whose POV I was listening to and the characterizations were that good at all. I honestly wish I hadn't listened to it because it ruined a lot for me.
The Authenticity Project was such a clever idea, yet the execution was poor. I am definitely in the minority, so if it's something that sounds interesting to you, I highly suggest finding out for yourself. I should have switched to eyeball reading, and maybe, I would have liked it better. Although I didn't love this one, I'd definitely give Clare Pooley another chance.
📚 R E A D • I F • Y O U • L I K E
• slice-of-life stories
• endings tied up with a bow
⚠️ CW: mental illness, addiction, drug use, drug abuse, alcohol, alcoholism, death, death of parent, grief, cancer, outing, homophobia, infidelity, cursing, sexual content, suicidal thoughts
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"The truth often isn't pretty. It's not aspirational. It doesn't fit neatly into a little square on Instagram."
"Surely it would be better to live a messy, flawed, sometimes not very pretty life that was real and honest, than to constantly try to live up to a life of perfection that was actually a sham?"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, and Alcohol
Moderate: Cancer, Cursing, Death, Homophobia, Infidelity, Grief, Death of parent, and Outing
Minor: Sexual content and Suicidal thoughts
stormeno's review against another edition
emotional
funny
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Grief, Outing, and Abandonment
Minor: Death, Homophobia, and Sexual content
viwilliams's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use
Minor: Alcoholism, Cancer, Homophobia, Infidelity, Terminal illness, Grief, and Death of parent
toves_bokhylla's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Tyckte om den på det stora hela, men blev frustrerad över slutet!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Alcohol
Moderate: Cancer, Death, Homophobia, Mental illness, Grief, Death of parent, Outing, and Gaslighting
alyssasullivan's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, and Drug abuse
Moderate: Toxic relationship
Minor: Homophobia
beccamarriner's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
As a concept I think the story had so much potential but I found it very hard to like a single character. Monica was the only one that grew on me but I felt like her character development was lost at the end. her relationship with Hazard felt rushed and unnatural, especially because I feel like in the real world, a random postcard from a stranger is threatening, not worthy of being pinned to a wall. It meant that their chemistry was lacking and unbelievable for me. Julian was also just a manipulative liar and had an ending that felt like a cop out as he died for no reason and without facing the consequences of his actions to the full extent. The redeeming qualities for me were the side characters such as Benji, Baz and Betty (Mrs Wu) and I believe the Authenticity Project could’ve been so much better following their authentic selves and the journey of open sexuality in a traditional Chinese family rather than a mommy blogger who’s addicted to her phone.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction
Moderate: Homophobia, Grief, and Pregnancy
Minor: Death and Suicidal thoughts
ramreadsagain's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
On balance this is just over a three star read as there are a lot of things I liked but also quite a bit I didn’t like.
I thought the characters weren’t very well developed beyond their main “thing” and half the time I didn’t understand why they all because such good friends as they never seemed very compatible.
Julian was just straight up an unpleasant character.
However I did like the message of first impressions often being wrong and the need to be honest and communicate, the “found family” aspects as well as some of the character growth shown.
I didn’t like how Alice’s character was framed as it really just boiled down to “technology and influencers bad”. I understand the point about authenticity and a lot of celebrities and influencers being unauthentic and their online lives being shallow/fake however the book also just seemed to treat her career (because that’s what it was) in quite a derogatory fashion.
I thought the characters weren’t very well developed beyond their main “thing” and half the time I didn’t understand why they all because such good friends as they never seemed very compatible.
Julian was just straight up an unpleasant character.
However I did like the message of first impressions often being wrong and the need to be honest and communicate, the “found family” aspects as well as some of the character growth shown.
I didn’t like how Alice’s character was framed as it really just boiled down to “technology and influencers bad”. I understand the point about authenticity and a lot of celebrities and influencers being unauthentic and their online lives being shallow/fake however the book also just seemed to treat her career (because that’s what it was) in quite a derogatory fashion.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction and Alcoholism
Moderate: Death and Pregnancy
Minor: Homophobia, Suicide, Outing, and Classism
foursythia's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
An okay book, maybe meh. Felt rushed by the last 50-60 pages.
It was great, sweet, heartwarming, just the right amount of soft and sugar. And then somewhere before the middle, the author can't stop adding more characters & stories into the spider webs only to have so many of them.... vanished into thin air. Not much significance, hanging. The ending was? Sounds like somebody force the author to just write/come up with anything & wrap it up in 50 pages. How did Julian and Riley really just have that non-closure closure? And I feel like Alice & Bunty, if were only to be written such resolve, could've entirely be blipped out of the story (she does not contribute significantly to the plot anyway) and dedicate those pages to Riley & Julian's resolve. Monica's character was way too rigid the entire book to just suddenly have a magical 'wake up call' & change her mind in what? A night? A week of realization?
But let's talk about what works for me. It's light bites, easy to read & flip through, very light hearted too, the characters was lovely though a little lacking depth and deserve better plot. Give it a try only if you're like, really bored & feeling random. It's a happy hopeful read, though.
Ps., damn the women's overthinking here is kinda crazy me thinks.
It was great, sweet, heartwarming, just the right amount of soft and sugar. And then somewhere before the middle, the author can't stop adding more characters & stories into the spider webs only to have so many of them.... vanished into thin air. Not much significance, hanging. The ending was? Sounds like somebody force the author to just write/come up with anything & wrap it up in 50 pages. How did Julian and Riley really just have that non-closure closure? And I feel like Alice & Bunty, if were only to be written such resolve, could've entirely be blipped out of the story (she does not contribute significantly to the plot anyway) and dedicate those pages to Riley & Julian's resolve. Monica's character was way too rigid the entire book to just suddenly have a magical 'wake up call' & change her mind in what? A night? A week of realization?
But let's talk about what works for me. It's light bites, easy to read & flip through, very light hearted too, the characters was lovely though a little lacking depth and deserve better plot. Give it a try only if you're like, really bored & feeling random. It's a happy hopeful read, though.
Ps., damn the women's overthinking here is kinda crazy me thinks.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death and Homophobia
charminggoats's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Dementia, Grief, and Alcohol
Moderate: Animal death
melancholymegs's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug use, and Alcohol
Moderate: Mental illness, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Body shaming, Cancer, Cursing, Homophobia, Sexual content, and Outing