Let’s talk about Paradise Logic by Sophie Kemp! If I had one word to describe it: INSANE.
I was looking at the new release hardcovers at my local bookstore a couple weeks ago, and saw the most unhinged and wild book cover I’ve ever seen. I recommend googling the cover just to see it, but if you don’t want to, fair enough: It’s a depiction of Adam and Eve… But Adam has a man bun, Eve is a naked anime girl, and the author’s name is in comic sans font. I was so confused. I was also so intrigued. I spent almost $30 of my hard earned money to read it.
The book follows a 23 year old college grad and waterpark model named Reality (insane name choice, by the way) who embarks on a journey to become the world’s best girlfriend. In order to do this, she obviously has to find a boyfriend. Becoming preoccupied with a magazine series that gives her a strange medication to make her the “perfect girlfriend”, paired with the “You need a hobby, or a boyfriend, or something” conversations with her friends and roommates, she finally sets eyes on who she thinks she can win over: a 26 year old grad student, Ariel. However, she quickly learns that spending every second with him and being obsessed with him doesn’t mean they’re dating, and it’s impossible to force someone to love you. It’s situationship hell. This book is funny, it’s weird, and it’s surprisingly soft when you see how Reality’s life and relationships have all changed by the end of the book.
The whole premise sounded insane to me from the start, and it just got wilder as the story went on. It felt like an absolute fever dream, where I was questioning which parts of the story actually happened and which parts were pure delusion on Reality’s part. For a plot as strange and bizarre as this, it was executed incredibly well, in my opinion.
But what I find shocking, was I actually loved Sophie Kemp’s unconventional writing style. She makes up her own words, uses 10 exclamation points at a time, and even throws in the occasional heart emoji. Is this a perfect work of literature? Absolutely not. However, the flow and the chaos of her writing style matched the crazy premise of the story perfectly, and that’s something I don’t think many modern “weird literary fiction” authors pull off as well as Sophie Kemp did.
This is by far the strangest, weirdest, most chaotic book I’ve ever read. It was also absolutely hilarious for most of it. Watching how Reality’s life changed, both inside and outside, as the story went on was very surprising – it’s not often that I find a book that depicts changes in relationships where it is so clear who is at fault, their obliviousness, their ignorance. Reminder: You cannot make someone love you if they don’t want to love you.
This book left me staring at a wall. I almost cried when I finished it. 4.5/5 stars.
Thanks for reading my review! If you want to read it, be mindful of triggers. There is also quite a bit of explicit content. I would be haply to share more of my thoughts or more about these topics in detail need be.
Edit for clarity and typo
by sbucksbarista