Abby had a promising art career to look forward to after high school but finds herself still living at home with her parents and working as a cashier.  She spends a lot of her time flipping through the magazines by her register hoping to spot her former BFF Elise, who is quickly gaining popularity as a Hollywood actress.

Abby learns that Elise will be at their ten year high school reunion and she decides to attend in hopes of speaking with Elise once again.  She's surprised to find that Elise remains kind and warm as ever, praising Abby's art and confiding she hopes they can be close again one day.

Abby surprises Elise soon after the reunion when she calls her from the airport to say she's in California without a plan.  Caught off guard, Elise invites Abby to her home but her uncertainty soon turns to happiness to have someone in which she can confide.

Abby is only too happy to accept Elise's invitation to stay at her home.  She quickly realizes that Elise's professional career is thriving but the young actress is lonely.

Acting as a supportive friend, Abby is soon part of every aspect of Elise's life, even becoming her personal assistant.
Masking her jealousy and ulterior motives, she becomes the only person Elise can trust, ultimately leading to a dark finale.

"I let you believe the world awaited me with the same hunger it awaited you. But the truth was that, as you were born to be seen, I was born to crouch in the shadows. I was the hidden source, quietly generating the scenes you played out. I knew this, even if I didn't yet recognize mine as the superior gift." *

The Paper Wasp is a chilling book.  What starts as a seemingly average tale of a woman down on her luck who does some relatively innocent social media stalking to keep up with a more successful former friend becomes a story of obsession, ambition, and finally psychotic behavior.  Some of the events seem random or unimportant but they eventually come together for the ending.  Sprinkle in a dash of magic realism in the form of premonitory dreams/visions and you have a rather odd novel.  
I like odd, mostly because it's so open to interpretation.

Thanks to Grove Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.  The Paper Wasp is scheduled for release on June 11, 2019.

*Included quote is from a digital advanced reader's copy and is subject to change upon final publication.

My review is 4 stars.

Definitely the first by the author for me and this is a dark book as proceeded into it. Sucked me right in from the start. Tells you more and more about the life and the darkness it has. The characters are nicely written and the book has a strong plot. Dialogues are written beautifully, but there were few hiccups while going on in the book chapter by chapter and there was also a inconsistent pace of the book. Though overall the book is a nice read.

As promised by notices, really persuasive and seductive voice: of a misfit swallowing and being titivated in dangerous ways by the love for lost friend .. it does not work out well. It's hard to talk about v it's power without giving it all away but it's surely about the empty rewards of Hollywood... despite its veneer of experimental, it's sure and gripping. Galloped through!

Thank you to NetGalley, Lauren Acampora and Grove Atlantic for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

I feel like I need to take a step back after reading this and think, what on earth did I just read??

I was so sucked up in Acampora's beautiful writing at first, which is so fantastic that you mind is filled with the vivid imagery described within, before I started to question the fact that none of the characters were likeable at all (which might not bother some people but is one of the main things I value in a book). The story I also found really weird and kind of bizarre? I can imagine this being a very 'marmite' - (you either love it or you hate it) kind of book for readers. Either way I am kind of left a little bewildered and a little fascinated after finishing.

Bewildered, fascinated and intrigued, I would love to see what Acampora creates next!

This is a new to me author and the description intrigued me. This book was very different than I expected. I still trying to figure out if I enjoyed it or not!

This book was definitely out of my normal realm. If you're into dark fantasy this may be for you. Just wasn't for me. I appreciate NetGalley allowing me to read & review an advanced copy.

Definitely a strange book. It had some intriguing parts but it was a little stilted, fantastical and all over the place for me. I could tell from early on where the book was going to go and I was right. I did push myself to finish it though, even though it wasn’t quite for me.

Abby leads a rather boring, midwestern life working as a cashier at a local grocery store. When she finds out that her childhood best friend Elise is coming home for their ten year high school reunion, Abby sees that as her opportunity to come out of the darkness and start a new life. Elise is a big movie star now, appearing on the cover of magazines and in the tabloids. Looking at her high school yearbook, Abby sees that Elise once said, “I hope that we can be close again,” and Abby believes that time is now.

The Paper Wasp is an amazing tale of one woman on the edge of sanity. Abby is the girl that was supposed to succeed, but somehow along the way began to lose the fight with reality. She dreams in full color, premonitory dreams that she commits to elaborate drawings. Convinced that these drawings are her ticket to meeting her soulmate, an older film director with whom she is not quite obsessed, Abby makes the journey to Hollywood to find her way to Perren.

Acampora so beautifully captures two young women who start out in the same place, but move to such different places. Both have needs that can’t be met by reality. This isn’t a book about mental illness, but more about the paths that can be taken to find your way. It is a story of in some ways redemption for one and a fall from grace for the other. I was spellbound by it.


This review will be posted at BookwormishMe.com close to publication date.

Paper Wasp was a dark novel told from Abby’s point of view. She seems to have an obsession with her childhood best friend, Elise, who is now a Hollywood starlet. When they reunite at their high school reunion, Elise tells Abby to find her if she ever comes to LA. Abby quickly leaves her small town in Michigan for the sunny skies in California. Elise invites her to stay which is what Abby wants. Abby is a dreamer and I found myself wondering what was real or all part of her fantasy. The characters are not very likable. They both seem to be trying to get ahead and don’t really seem to care for each other.

While this book was a little too dark for my taste, the author has a great way of writing that made it a somewhat quick read.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Grove Press for this eARC.!

When finishing this book, I must say I was not sure whether I liked it or not. To tell the truth, I was not that interested in Abby's character and this must have been quite an important factor in my final sensation concerning The Paper Wasp. Anyway, I liked the writing style so if the synopsis looks interesting to you, you may like this book!

3.5 stars. A quiet, slow-burning psychological novel. I was expecting a thriller, but that it is not. It lacks a lot of big action, so it is probably not for all readers, but those who enjoy an intellectual challenge while reading will instantly fall for Lauren Acampora’s narrative style. She deftly captures the complex relationship between Abby and Elise and does a fantastic job fleshing our female characters whose interactions don’t revolve around a man (Rafael, Elise’s boyfriend, does factor in, but not at all in a way that is overbearing to the plot). I did sometimes find Abby intolerable in how emotionally immature and stunted she was, and her obsession with the director Perren was annoying, but it was definitely one of those cases in which an unlikeable character is undeniably interesting. The Paper Wasp is a dark character study that makes up for its slow pace with its depth and skillful writing. I am looking forward to reading more from Lauren Acampora! Big thanks to Netgalley and Grove Press for the ARC in exchange for this honest review.

Posted to Goodreads 4/10:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2776109043

And instagram 4/11:

I love this book! It paints a great picture of the time period with unique voice and characters! I will definitely recommend this to my book club!

Beautifully written, this book had me confused about whether I loved it or not. I found it difficult to understand the main character's motivations. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC.

This book started off slowly for me but I found myself absorbed in Abby’s quirky twisty world. Her dreams, and the way she interacts with the people and the world around her lingered in my mind even when I wasn’t reading. This isn’t a book to rush through, best drawn out and enjoyed slowly, but an incredible read.

I read this book without knowing what to expect. It was a very nice surprise and I enjoyed it very much. It held my interest and was suspenseful. Very good book.

"... my dreams bloomed in saturated colors, as if they'd been dropped into a chemical bath."

I LOVE THIS BOOK. This is the readers' high I'm always after - a page-turning masterpiece that makes you want to rush through to see what happens but also to stop and take the time to appreciate the beauty in every single sentence.

The Paper Wasp reads like a breathless letter from Abby, an awkward, post-suicidal empath, to Elise, her glamorous childhood bestie turned Hollywood movie star. What starts off as a creepy obsession eventually spins into Abby realizing her self worth, and eventually taking it too far. Abby is a brilliant artist with vivid dreams and visions coming into herself, and Elise, she realizes, is just an empty movie star, left often to become exploited. Abby's disappointment takes a dark turn, but if you pay attention, there are clues to what happens planted all along the way.

"You weren't the one who mattered. I was. I was the one who was filled to bursting, the one who deserved feathered wings."

Big thanks to Grove Atlantic, Netgalley and Lauren Acampora for the opportunity to read and review!

I've been sitting and thinking about this book quite a bit since I finished it-Did I like it? Did I hate it?- that in itself gives it at least a three-star rating. A book that puts you through that kind of whirlwind of emotions without being outright bad is actually... pretty good.

This is a weird one. The prose is beautiful and dream-like. Much of the plot focuses on this dream-like state-- what does it mean to be an artist-- and I felt like I was in a dream myself when I read through some of it.

The main character focuses on Abby, a drop-out art student that has some mental issues. She works at a grocery story and has mostly checked-out of life, until her best friend, a now famous movie star from childhood shows up at her high school reunion. On a whim, she decides to follow her friend back to LA and rekindle their relationship.

One of my biggest problems with the book is that Abby is SO VERY unlikable. I don't get her motivation and I found most of her actions and observations to be equally unlikable. And her friend Elise? Just as unlikable, if not worse. This is not really a story about rekindled friendship or even friendship gone wrong. There is no climatic moment of "OMG, that's what happened in the past?!"- it was an artistic ride through Abby's past and current view of life as she spirals into madness or some sort of surreal magical realism.

It wasn't a bad read, just not what I usually enjoy. I know that so much of what I read went over my head. This book would be appreciated by a different audience than myself. Thank you Netgalley and Grove Press for an advance copy of this book for an honest review.

Thank you Net Galley and Grove Press for an advanced copy of this book, but I don't even know where to start with this.

I guess I'll start by saying this book has ups and downs. There were moments where I was thoroughly invested about what happened next, but those moments were few and far between and the downs were numerous. I didn't understand the motivations behind Abby's decisions, especially in the ending and I thought her as a bad friend who thought she was so much better and more intelligent than Elise or anyone else she met. I also don't like when authors used big, 50 cent words in their writing. If I have to use the dictionary more than twice on one page I get taken out of the story and become exhausted trying to keep up.

It's an art house type book that I can see being made into an A24 film and might be suited for other people, but not me.

This novel was unusual.
On the surface, the story is about friendship, about superficiality and the Hollywood scene who is the new ‘it-actress’ versus who is a real artist. These themes are dealt with through Abby, the stayed behind ugly, despairing cashier who at a class reunion reconnects with her former best friend Elise. Elise has become the newest Hollywood ‘ It star ‘and could not be more different from Abby. However, Abby manages to reinsert herself into Elise’s life becomes almost indispensable but she sees behind the facade. So far so good but all this is told through Abby’s mind and this mind is slowly but surely descending into madness. All is expressed through her dreams and paintings. This is where the book becomes surreal and the ending even more so. It is well written with good description and characterization, especially the mind of Abby, but for me, it lacked something overarching, overall purpose. It might well be that I just did not get it. Anyway, I would suggest to read it for yourself to find out.

3 stars.*

This is the first book I have read by Lauren Acampora and while I greatly appreciate her writing style and her beautiful use of imagery in her writing, this one was just a little bit too "out there" for my tastes.

It is the story of 28-year-old Abby, working as a checkout girl at the grocery store while living with her parents. She is depressed, lackluster, and slightly obsessed with her childhood best friend who has gone on to Hollywood stardom. She spends her days creating drawings full of dark imagery and fantasizing that she is just a step away from stardom herself. At her 10th High School reunion, Abby runs into her BFF/obsession, Elise, who offhandedly remarks that they should reconnect. On a whim and with little advance planning, Abby takes off for LA-landing on Elise's doorstep.

The writing is intentionally disjointed...aligning with the thoughts of the protagonist. I was completely unsure if Abby was mentally ill or imagining much of the story and it left me a bit unsettled. I enjoyed the twists and turns of Elise & Abby's friendship but I never like ambiguous endings or books that seem to favor the bad guy and I can't help but wonder what the author was aiming for with this one.

*With thanks to NetGalley for the advance ARC of this book in exchange for the honest review above.

Abby Graven is the young, geeky, going-nowhere heroine of the engaging, sharp-witted debut novel "The Paper Wasp"," written with immediacy and panache. Abby's former best friend Elise is now the next hot thing in Hollywood and Abby impulsively inserts herself into Elise's turbulent life, with unexpected consequences. I've read many of these "beauty and the beast" dramas but this one distinguishes itself by immersing the reader in Abby's coiled psyche. I loved the savage look at Tinseltown and dreaded, then enjoyed, the dark ending. An impressive debut.