The novel has made quite a splash. The Book of Ayn is by an Australian author who's been reviewed by Kirkus Reviews, which summed it up as lively, sexy, and funny, with an actual quest for meaning at its core, and by The NY Times (paywalled, I can't read it either except for the first few lines that come up in the Google search page); The New Republic (paywalled); The Washington Post (also paywalled); the NYRB (where you can read five paragraphs) and Vulture. In a Google search, this swathe of reviews in the US media swamps the reviews in the Australian media, you have to keep 'turning the page' before you find that The Australian (paywalled) reviewed it in May 2024 and so did The Conversation in September.

You don't need to know much about Ayn Rand except that she was the poster girl for the brutal selfishness of libertarianism i.e. not just against all forms of government social welfare but also altruism and kindness. If you are poor, vulnerable or needy in any way Ayn Rand was not going to put her hand in her pocket to help you out. She probably wouldn't have helped an old lady across the road either. So when Anna inadvertently follows an Ayn Rand tour in New York and subsequently adopts this philosophy she becomes the ultimate Mean Girl. A posture that suits her well because, as she confesses from the first page, she has been a contrarian since childhood. But in overstepping the mark with her satirical novel about the opioid crisis she had failed to follow the 'rules' and got 'cancelled'. Her identity reset to becoming a 'Randian' offers Freiman the opportunity to poke fun at contemporary culture in ways that I found hilarious.

But also to skewer reality on the streets as Anna tries hard to rationalise the selfishness of modern society:

Three blocks from my building I passed a homeless encampment. Walking between the grungy tents and battered furniture, I could feel the low sonic vibrations of deep distress. I moved fast; from fear but also from the hot squeeze of shame. I knew Ayn's unsympathetic argument: people were educated into low self-esteem. They were taught dependency and grievance and despair. This felt a little generalised, and it didn't address the factor of mental illness. But then again, the reality of mental illness seemed to be in dispute. Was it neurochemical or trauma symptom, or just the unconscious manifestation of cultural dysfunction? Ayn would have said the whole culture had an objectivity problem. (p.69)

Unsurprisingly, Anna has odd friendships.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/01/06/the-book-of-ayn-2023-by-lexi-freiman/… (more)

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anzlitlovers | Jan 6, 2025 |

Inappropriation by Lexi Freiman

Inappropriation is like an extreme form of rocky road. It is packed full of all sorts of delicious things that you didn’t know worked so well together and it’s an overload of sensory feels. Inappropriation contains so much that I think you could read this book multiple times and find many new things to laugh and wonder at. It’s very clever satire, to the point of me wondering what I wasn’t getting and where I’d fallen away from the zeitgeist.

The story is about Ziggy, who starts at a new girls’ high school. The hierarchy of the girls and what is popular and why immediately fascinates her. It’s like she’s an archaeologist studying a new species (in particular, the Cates) or an explorer as many new worlds are open to her. It also made me glad I’m not in high school now as I don’t think I could deal with all the ideologies and identities that Ziggy and her classmates need to find and discover for themselves. There is sexuality, cultural identity, religion, race and degrees of feminism to negotiate, all with a number of other girls ready to rip apart your thoughts. It’s a survival of the fittest where nobody knows what the definition is. It certainly doesn’t help that Ziggy’s mum is a little odd, holding menstruation workshops for all genders and being concerned that Ziggy’s father doesn’t objectify her enough. Ziggy’s grandmother, a Holocaust survivor and doctor with an obsession with the digestive system and seniors’ Tinder, was my favourite. This was probably because she was comfortable in her own skin and said and did what she wanted. This was in contrast with Ziggy and her schoolmates, who were awkward and uncomfortable at trying on their new ideologies, always looking out for someone to sideswipe them.

For me, Inappropriation wasn’t the easiest of reads. The book is loaded to the hilt with satire on a number of levels. Like Ziggy, I felt kind of awkward at times that the joke was going over my head and that I’d missed something so obvious that everyone else would get. So the novel was actually pretty darn successful at making me feel like Ziggy! I felt under pressure and kind of exposed, so I really emphasised with Ziggy. Some parts made me laugh out loud, other parts had me seeking out my phone surreptitiously to Google something that I wasn’t sure was true/cool/too out of it or old to understand. I think Inappropriation would make a great film (and okay, things a little more obvious for me) as a lot of the scenes were perfectly visualised in my head. This book isn’t for everyone, but I know that some will love it to bits.

Thank you to Allen & Unwin for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

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birdsam0610 | Aug 18, 2018 |

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