Special thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel! What a stunning debut. The prose was incisive and clever, so much so that I simply couldn’t put the book down. The precision with which both couples and their interactions is written is truly commendable. Additionally, the author’s ability to tease out so many nuances and levels of meaning through these interactions is one I have not found elsewhere, and that I greatly admire. While I found the novel to be tiresome at times in its descriptions of the elite and all their quirks, it was thankfully not to the point that I was prevented from enjoying the plot and the characters.

Overall, The Portrait of a Mirror was a fantastic read; this is definitely a book to be on the look out for in the upcoming months.

I wanted to like this book. The premise was so intriguing — a modern-day reinvention of the myth of Narcisuss, who fell in love with his own reflection.

The novel is about two couples, Wes and Diana and Vivian and Dale. They're the kind of people you see on Instagram and are all entangled in their rich world of prep schools, and overlapping work lives. The two couples intertwine after being unexpectedly thrust together and are forced to reckon with this inexplicably complicated tangle they have made for themselves. The characters are believable but insufferable with their wealth, privilege and infidelity. The author clearly recognized and utilizes this as it almost borders on satire.

But, in the end, this book just wasn't for me. It's so overblown with long descriptions of everything from the hit 2015 podcast "Serial" to redundant details of people viewing a painting. It's excessively wordy, overindulgent and was just too much for me. I was glad to see it end.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Interesting premise, but had little or no empathy for the characters. Enjoyed the art history passages!

This book sounds fascinating: a modern retelling of the myth of Narcissus. However, the first thing I noticed when starting this book was the excessive wordiness. This book is full of clunky, overlong sentences and overindulgent prose. I found myself rereading sentences trying to figure out what the hell the author was trying to say.
Here’s an example: “The diffusion of acute pain offered a euphoric moment of relative relief, a self-congratulatory animal delight in the ability to breathe that, as his heartbeat slowed, circulated into a dull tingle at his extremities.” Eye roll.
I continued on in hopes that the fastidious reading that this book requires would be worth it. But then the second chapter is mostly just technical corporate jargon, and that’s where this book lost me. I’ve read many positive reviews and I’m fine with admitting that this one just isn’t for me. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

dnf after 30 pages

Yes, sure, I did not get far. And I am not having the best day with arcs.
This is a retelling of Narcissus from Greek mythology, the guy who was so enamored with his own reflection that he drowned after trying to kiss it. In a very meta way, I can see how the writing fits this theme, and I get the portrayal of a cold, distant but seemingly perfect and sooo handsome man as narcissus.

Our protagonist comes from money but he has none at the moment, all that's to his name he has worked himself for, so you can't really fault him for his name. Let's forget what kind of upbringing money can give and what kind of advantages come with this.
He hates his wife but loves the drama so he doesn't divorce. He is so competent but confuses time to get up with time to be at an event. His flaws get mentioned to show oh yes, he has them, but are destructed with the next breath.

The author uses words with many, many syllables and write so pretentiously that after each sentence, I feel like they are turning to me to gauge my reaction, see how they done, want me to tell them how clever they are.
I love play with language. Gormenghast is one of my favourite books of all time. But in this, it only looks obnoxious and as I said, I am sure it ties in neatly with the theme. But it's nothing I want to read for as long as 200 pages, because the verb I'd be using for that would be to endure, not to enjoy.

From what I saw from the other reviews, again, this one is polarizing: You love it or you hate it.
So I'd recommend that if the plot sounds appealing to you and I haven't turned you away, that you go and search for an excerpt and look for yourself.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

Pros: The cover of this book (Caravaggio!) is what first got my attention. The description was also intriguing—a modern take on Narcissus. There were hints of Fates and Furies vibes. I liked the chapters that were in different formats—letters, texts, emails, etc.

Cons: The main plot points in this book are about infidelity. This book feels too wordy, and at times the use of “big words” felt forced.

Thank you to NetGalley and Abrams - The Overlook Press for the opportunity to read this book!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I had very mixed feelings about this book - after a couple false starts, I nearly gave up in the first chapter. The writing is overwrought, vocabulary a bit pretentious. I couldn't decide if it was for literary effect, or to impress the reader, though it got a bit tedious using the Kindle lookup feature. Not sure I'll ever read a book again that uses "sartorial" and "inchoate" multiple times. I skimmed a good portion of the last 15% of the novel, as it went far too deep into bringing the running mythology theme than I needed or wanted to go.

However, once I got going - despite the complete unlikeability of the four main characters, I devoured this book, and had to find out what bad decisions were going to happen next. It was always a treat when secondary characters Julian and Eric made their appearances to lighten the mood - would love to see a spin-off on either one of them.

Once released, I predict this will be a love or hate book, and quite probably optioned for a mini-series. I'd watch it. For readers who have not tired of novels about privileged young white New Yorkers (or for a little twist, Philadelphians), and love a character-driven novel, this is for you.

Indulgent. Insufferable characters. Clever writing. Humorous.
I had such mixed feelings from one extreme to the next while reading this, which I do understand is the point. I appreciated the character development and societal commentary but I think I will soon forget this read.

<i>”A stunning reinvention of the myth of Narcissus”</i> written in prose that is somewhat in love with itself. How appropriate!

Wes and Diana live in New York, Dale and Vivien in Philadelphia. When both women’s work means they switch cities, you can guess what is going to happen. It all takes place in the worlds of art museums and technology consultancies, where people gather and say things like <i>”In my view, you can never have too much caviar”</i>. And where people play power games, some of which seemed all too familiar to me having spent several years of my life working for an IT consultancy. The office repartee is sharp and intelligent. And so is the book.

Not a lot happens, really. We follow the story of what happens when Diana goes to Philadelphia and meets Dale, and Vivien goes to New York and meets Wes. Some of it you can probably guess. As the book’s blurb puts it, <i>the two couples’ lives cross and tangle</i>.

But you don’t need a lot to happen in a book when there are plenty of other things to keep your interest. Vivien’s exhibition (she’s a curator rather than an artist) in New York brings some fascinating discussion of art into the book. The author herself spent five years working in the art world at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, so we already have the locations and the environment drawn from the author’s own experience. When she writes about art, she does so from a position of understanding.

But there seems to be a lot more of the author than just that in this book. She has drawn on her own life (the internet gives us an account of her wedding in The New York Times in which we learn she met her husband at a debating society which is exactly how one of the couples in the book meets), but she has also brought together some of her own key interests. There is an article on the internet by the author which uses the book Anna Karenina to discuss alternative facts (and Donald Trump) and Anna Karenina, the book not the person, features in the novel. On her blog, Joukovsky says <i>”After Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, where he tracks allusions to whales and cetology, I keep a running list of references to recursion, innovation, mythology, and glamour.</i> And “recursion, innovation, mythology and glamour” would not be a bad summary of The Portrait of a Mirror. Part way though the story, we are reminded by one of the characters of the classic example of recursion where you place two mirrors opposite one another and an infinite series of mirrors appears. Time and time again in this novel we gradually work our way through multiple levels of significance and meaning. The book knows what it is doing and isn’t afraid to poke fun at itself. Towards the end we read

<i>He understood, and she understood; she knew he understood, he knew she understood. He knew she knew he understood, and she knew he knew she knew he understood. They understood each other, perfectly.</i>

In fact there are several points where the book is very self aware. One character says that no one ends books with a wedding nowadays, so…

I have to acknowledge that I initially struggled with the style of the book. As I said at the start, the text feels a bit like it is in love with itself. But I quickly gave myself a talking to: this is a re-working of the myth of Narcissus, so go with the flow - it would be wrong if the text didn’t love itself a bit. So, yes, there are complicated sentences that take longer to say something than they need to and use words that I had to look up in the dictionary. But, once I settled into it and accepted it as a feature, it became fun. I see from the very few other reviews (on Goodreads) that I can see at the time of writing that not everyone reacted that way and it turned some off the book. I can understand that reaction, but I think I chose fairly quickly to treat it all as part of the “wicked fun” the blurb refers to. Note that several chapters consist of email, instant message etc. transcripts which move the story forward by letting us see the communications between people. These sections are also fun to read.

The book is quite American in flavour. I had to Google some of references to American things. I also used Google a fair amount to look up the pictures that are discussed as part of Vivien’s exhibition and to check on some of the mythological characters who are mentioned. You can read the book without doing all that extra work, although I do think looking up the images discussed is worthwhile. There’s also a playlist in an appendix and, on first glance, I have virtually all of it in my iTunes library, so that might be a project for later this evening.

Ultimately this book was not for me. I feel that the author is certainly an artist, which can be seen both through the writing and the issues and themes tackled in this novel. If I were more familiar with the inspiration for The Portrait of a Mirror I may have connected with it more, but I always like to take a chance on re-tellings, even if I’m not familiar with them. I would definitely recommend this to my more literary-inclined friends!

I really enjoyed this novel which combines compelling characters, sparkling prose, and a provocative meditation on art. The novel is not pulling punches as it satirizes its main characters who all know of each other (even as they don't necessarily realize how well their partners know each other) and who all came of age in the same cultural milieu (although across several elite institutions). But as entertaining as it is to watch the twisted webs the main characters weave as they deceive each other and themselves, it's the Ovidian backdrop that makes the story so compelling. The myth of Narcissus, in particular, receives particular attention as the reader gets taken through a tour of an exhibition of art inspired by Ovidian myth. The image of museum-goers snapping selfies of themselves reflected in a mirror with one of the paintings in the exhibition really translates the myth into effective modern terms. I also particularly enjoyed the set-piece of the museum reception as reflected through the echo-chamber of social media--it may take a minute to get into the rhythm of reading social media posts, especially in an ebook as compared to in their native apps or (I imagine) in a hard copy of the novel, but the rewards are definitely there. On the whole, this is a funny and smart novel and it was satisfying to me in ways that I can find individually in separate books, but not as often all in the same book.

I received a digital copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and the publisher in return for an honest review. My thoughts are my own, and I pre-ordered a hard copy to keep.

The Narcissus myth reinvented in New York's elite.

Two beautiful-and-they-know-it couples' charmed lives get messy when their paths cross during the summer of 2015.

Joukovsky's writing is witty and clever, with a finely-tuned sense of the absurd. Her use of aposiopeses* (the device of suddenly breaking off in speech) during the VIP rooftop party is a tour de force of literary juxtaposition. *By way of explanation, the word 'aposiopesis' (sing.) appears in the novel.

The fine art descriptions are erudite, never overbearing, and reflect the myth and the plot. It is worth reading the appendices.

So much cleverness and erudition can be grating. The midway point, in particular, suffers from this affliction.

The Portrait of a Mirror has a satirical style reminiscent of the early novels of Evelyn Waugh. I can see this novel adapting well to film/TV.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Abrams for the ARC.

Joudovsky goes all out to produce a literary fiction novel and it shows; there are some interesting realizations about human nature but overall it all seems overly contrived.

an incredible novel, i was captivated from the very beginning. intelligent writing style and interesting plot line and character development

Unfortunately I was unable to get through this entire book. While this book had intriguing 3-dimensional characters, I personally found the writing too technical and almost clinical in the way things were described. I appreciated the commentary and irony of it all, the self-obssessed characters paralleling the myth of Narcissus very well, but it all seemed rather tongue-in-cheek and it was a struggle to keep going and for me to see beyond the surface-level references to the myth. I liked the in-depth character analysis and I'm sure readers who prefer character-driven stories will be fond of this book.

This book tries really hard to provide scathing social commentary, but I am afraid it stops short of brilliance and ends up tied in its own masturbatory self-loathing. It makes for some sardonic side-smiles, wry glances towards the audience, but in the end it is similar to Easton-Ellis in that it tries so hard to be a piece of literary commentary that it ties itself up in knots. There's archetypal reliance to last the ages in here, and I know of the crowd that it is attempting to lampoon- but let's face it, I'm from rural Australia. The nuances of the rich New York elite are barely within my scope of vision, and while I am sure their behaviour is about as reprehensible as it comes, I'm afraid this book made for little of a scrape of the world that I am more familiar with. I am very sure that there are people out there for whom this is the peak of comedic genius- I am not those people.

The writing style was also disjointed and strange, attempting to be jarring to further the narrative- but I just could not connect with it. The characters had little impact on me, the events were boring and entrenched in tedium. I do feel that is part of the point- however, perhaps indulging some more social commentary would not have gone amiss too? I found little to like here, but I do appreciate again that it is for a subset of people- hence my two stars.

3.5*

Very captivating and exciting; though this is largely a feeling encompassed by the last third of the book. There were moments (towards the end) where I was holding my breath and hurriedly reading to find out the exact resolution of a situation. I loved the poetic circularity of the book and really found myself sinking into the symbolism and juxtaposition of the characters and their mindsets/personalities.

The language of this book is both entirely too complex yet perfectly appropriate for the story. While there were moments where I found myself thinking, "it sounds as though someone just picked up a thesaurus and replaced all of the common words with obscure ones," it didn't necessarily detract or distract from the moment at hand. (But it must also be noted that it didn't necessarily *add* anything either.) However, there were many sentences I found myself reading and re-reading due to the sheer complexity and construction of said sentences. Having to re-read and think hard about exactly what was being said takes you out of the story from time to time and can start to make you feel a little silly about not knowing what's being talked about. This is definitely a book you need to pay attention to; not just for the language, but for the sequence of events that take place.

I have to believe that there is more than just a little irony and exaggeration in this story. Largely in the sense that it's all just so crazy, so utterly *un*relateable that it becomes relatable in the general. The characters are so wealthy, so beyond what we would consider ordinary, day-to-day Americans and their problems are exactly what I'd label "rich, white people problems" that it's hard not to laugh at them and their woes (sometimes.) Julian is without a doubt my favourite character (followed closely by Horace, let it be known) and his presence between the lives of both Diana and Wes and Vivien and Dale tie their problems together in a neat little bow. But there is just so much nonsense in the scenarios the couples find themselves in that it's hard to take it seriously at times. Not that the action isn't dramatic and not that there aren't serious moments that have you gripping the book with a sudden fervour—just that it's so easy to have a giggle and think to yourself, "gosh, I wish these were *my* problems!"

It's all a bit predictable, but I didn't mind that too much. And the connection to the myth of Narcissus is beautiful and pronounced throughout. Even if you're not too familiar with the myth (as I myself was not) it's a good story on its own. Some of my favourite parts were reading the analyses of the art pieces presented by Vivien on her tours. The depth that Joukovsky goes to to make Vivien a true expert in her field is not lost on the reader. It doesn't feel forced and it doesn't feel as though you're being talked-down-to. It's totally accessible and provides some really beautiful analysis and discussion.

I swear I could go on and on about this book—there really is so much to talk about. It's beautifully cyclical and the cut-scene-esque writing of the last parts of the book are absolutely brilliant. As much as I got frustrated by the word choice at times, I can't deny that it is a well-constructed and elegantly planned story. Everything fits neatly together and works regardless of where in the story you are. Pieces start falling into place just so and it's really wonderfully done.

If nothing else, skipping back to predictability for a moment, I wish that there were deeper connections between Vivien and Diana and Dale and Wes. I understand that each of them sees themselves in the other's partner (Wes to Vivien and Diana to Dale, even though the partnerships are Wes and Diana and Vivien and Dale) and sees also what they cannot have because of what they already have. It's agonisingly yet elegantly orchestrated—but I wish that the women had each seen themselves in the other and the same for the men. To have Diana and Vivien challenge one another intellectually, to be shocked by the other's whit and intelligence and charm, would have been more striking. The same for Wes and Dale—for them to have been challenged by the other's materialism and drive, to have seen what they each had (materially) and to feel confronted yet undermined and then given a need to prove themselves the better.

That's all to say that it felt a bit on the marks of most stories that involve people falling in love with another's husband/wife/partner. Again revisiting the point of being able to relate to the story, it was just...not relatable? To look at these characters, all of whom are rich, successful, and well-to-do, and to have their biggest problems be a lack of communication and adultery—? I wish I had those problems. However, it must be said that Joukovsky creates the myth of Narcissus within these issues incredibly well. Just because it's a familiar trope doesn't mean it's bad. And just because I can't relate to being exorbitantly wealthy and living in million-dollar-homes doesn't mean I don't want to read about it. It just adds an extra layer that the reader has to peel back; this can be good or bad, depending on how many layers a story has.

Overall, would recommend this to readers who enjoy the writing style of Donna Tartt. Obviously not the same content or focus as Tartt's novels, but the same level of complexity in language and sentence structure. I'm deeply in love with the mythology and writers taking the time to modernise ancient myths (like that of Narcissus.) A good read, and something that I would recommend to those who want to really read a book and look past its surface. Beautifully cyclical and fervent—you're only ever one page away from potential disaster, and it's the balance on that fulcrum that keeps the story going.

Technically skilled writing that sometimes remained a touch too internal, I found myself at arm's length from all characters more often than not as decisions were made. A difficult one for me to finish, but not because of lack of merit.

I fell in love with this book. It had everything I wanted. And it was beautifully written. Every word inviting you to read the next! It was truly hypnotizing!

The characters in this novel could be the characters in The Secret History,who, in an alternative universe went to different colleges and survived into adulthood relatively unscathed. Or else they are Patrick Batemans (Batemen?) without the psychopathy: wealthy, cultured, but desperately incomplete. They are well dressed, highly sexed, and self-obsessed. However, they are always compelling because the writing is a joy, an effortless and sophisticated character study, heavy on descriptions and dialogue rather than plot or action. As I’m not an art historian or classicist I’m not sure if this was working on another level regarding the Narcissus myth (beyond the obvious) and I’m also not sure that the epistolary segments (emails, instagram posts etc) added anything to the story but this was an enjoyable read.