DNF at 30%. The book dragged so much. Perhaps it was the wordy language, or the boring storyline. I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately it was not for me.

It’s the story of Anna, an insecure girl who doesn’t fit it. She desperately tries to please her wealthy older boyfriend, despite all the red flags that he is a condescending, sarcastic, jerk who doesn’t deserve her. Anna must decide whether she will concentrate on her dreams of becoming an opera singer, or conform to the ideals and demands of those around her.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc.

If you're looking for a guide for toxic relationships, well, you just found the right one.

Jokes aside, I believe Imogen Crimp has potential. I wish to read more of her future work containing a different feel to this book.

I quickly dug into A Very Nice Girl. It had everything I love about a novel: young adult trying to make it in London and a new love interest for distraction. Imogen Crimp knows what makes the struggling young artist tick. Anna isn't the typical rich woman who went from private school to famous university and on to the highest degree for an operatic artist. She lives in a dirty old house with creepy landlords and her best friend. Anna struggled against all odds and made it to the best school in London through a scholarship with a mediocre education and tons of jobs that paved the way.

Anna's life is filled with study, rehearsals, and singing gigs at a nightclub when she can get them. Anna has a small circle of music students she hangs out with at the jazz club where she sings. A man who might change her life on one ordinary night buys her a drink. He is older and handsome, and something clicks immediately. This man is not like the usual playful young guys who populate the bars in London. Something about this one wakes up a yearning that Anna hasn't felt in a long time, maybe ever. The handsome, older guy is Max, who does something in finances. He doesn't come on strong, surprisingly. Anna and Max click and their relationship turns into a tense plotline. Anna suffers from professional self-doubt and questions she thinks she can answer about the mystery that is Max.

I loved this new novel and thank NetGalley, Imogen Crimp, and Henry Holt and Co. for the ARC.

A Very Nice Girl is a coming of age story featuring opera, dark romance, and a beautiful writing style. However, it took me forever to get through this because the pacing felt off to me- slow to start, speeds up in the middle, and Very slow to end the story.

And, correct me if im wrong, but as a debut novel- BRAVO!! an excellent debut.

I would definitely read Imogen Crimp’s work again, this particular story was just not for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

More Than a Very Nice Girl

Perfection. Sure, it’s most likely a book for women, but the author seems to know men well enough to flesh out a great plot about love and power.

Anna is our star; in fact, she is a fledging opera star studying at a conservatory. This originality of career opens up the reader to facets of the British educational and arts system. Anna comes from a household with a critical mother and an uninterested, boring father. Who would want to go home? Anna stays in London and trains to be a singer. Competition is fierce and she lives in near squalor to sustain herself.

For money, it’s always about not having enough money, she sings jazz at a bar. There she meets a financier, Max, fourteen years her senior, handsome, different. Our Anna is smart, she treasures the affair and is careful not to flaunt it. Instead, she waits for him to tell her that he has divorced his wife and she becomes his everything. But he doesn’t, their times together are packed with sex and eating at good restaurants. Other times, she is perfecting her beautiful voice with extra teachers and hard, hard work. She slips into the soul of her roles and the reader knows she’s a budding, gifted singer. And then she isn’t, as the relationship becomes muddy and the pain of it all affects her physically and monetarily. The story often focuses on her lack of money, she lives in terrible places and everything seemed dirty and messy, but she didn't complain.

As the pressure mounts and Anna has temporarily lost her operatic genius and confidence, she suffers from panic attacks that crack her soul. She becomes more unsure of Max and can no longer treat the love affair lightly.

The author digs deep into Anna’s soul and the reader has a front row seat to everything. She is a star and there is something of Anna in all of us.

My gratitude to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for this pre-published book. All opinions expressed are my own.

oh my god, so good. hot girl booktok is going to DEVOUR this one. if you like sally rooney, you'll love A Very Nice Girl!! A Very Nice Girl examines the power dynamics in relationships, a theme that is almost constant in rooney's work. and like rooney, this novel and the dialogue in it felt incredibly realistic. however, i want to impress that these are just comparisons, and actually, i found A Very Nice Girl unique in it's own right. I think it succeeds where rooney fails sometimes - in many rooney novels, the female characters are primarily defined by their relationship to the male characters. I felt A Very Nice Girl really analyzes this issue delicately, as it's not just a literary problem, many women in our own lives are seemingly defined by their relationships to men as well, or at least present as such. it was so interesting to watch anna start to define herself and her life by max. it was so frustrating to see the progression of anna's decisions and mistakes, but i could not stop reading towards the end!!! the opera aspect of the story was fascinating and really added so much to the story. The writing was rich and descriptive, but not overbearingly so, and I could see the exact picture the author was describing. and god, i just LOVE a female main character in her 20's figuring it all out, i am a sucker for it every time. I will say, however, that at times, the dialogue needed re-reading, a way i haven't felt about books lacking dialogue marks before. i also felt like booktok will love this one, and can see the really interesting discussions stemming from it. I cant wait to talk about the feminist implications of Mil, and the morality of Max, and what actually was reliable from Anna's narration regarding the other characters in the book. i really loved this one, thank you so much netgalley and Henry Holt books for giving me access to the arc!

tdlr; 4.5/5 stars, incredible debut novel, WILL become a gen-z hot girl literary booktok staple

Thanks to @netgalley and @henryholtbooks for this ARC of A VERY NICE GIRL by Imogen Crimp.

PUB DATE: FEBRUARY 8, 2022

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
4.5/5

Synopsis:
Anna, an aspiring opera singer, works night shifts part-time at a restaurant as a jazz singer which is where she meets Max, an older, wealthier, emotionally guarded man who takes an interest in Anna. As her relationship with Max starts to consume her life, she is forced to question how much she truly loves the world she knows and the music she loves.

Thoughts:
Author Imogen Crimp has penned a wonderful and compelling piece of contemporary women’s fiction that isn’t shy when it comes to expressing how cringeworthy first love can be. She explores the complexities of relationships, more specifically the naivety that is inevitable when it comes to first love. There were plenty of times throughout where I wanted to shake Anna out of the bubble that she starts to live in due to Max’s manipulative behavior and narcissism. At the same time, Crimp writes with such fantastic prose that I felt *with* Anna rather than for her. I felt soft when Max showed his sensitive and affectionate side, felt invincible as Anna took the stage to perform beautiful and passionate arias, and felt just as lonely, irritated, and lost as Anna did when she had to navigate her over the top roommates, bizarre landlords and out of touch parents.

I will say, however, that if you’re someone (like me) who gets irritated and can easily spot gaslighting and manipulation then you might not like this one. I struggled a bit with this throughout the book although I knew that this was also important to the portrayal of Anna’s relationship with Max and the dynamics between them that were destined due to age, gender, and class. Also, the writing style is very similar to Sally Rooney’s so if you’re not a fan of her style then I would steer clear of this one.

Make sure to check it out when it’s published on February 8, 2022!

A totally involving read so well written characters that come alive.Art opera money relationships a book I read late into the nightI was so involved.Will be recommending.#netgalley #henryholt

Hmmm. This book showed a lot of promise, but ultimately it was a mixed bag for me. I really struggled with this one. The first 45% of this novel were strong, but after that, it became a chore to finish the rest of it. This book was too looooooooong! It's much more of a character-driven novel, and books like that don't need to be so wordy and dragged out. This easily could've been a 250 page novel and I probably would've rated it 4 stars instead of 3. I liked Anna, and I liked Max here and there. I didn't like the way he treated her though. He comes across as a very generic and emotionally aloof man, so I was a little confused why Anna felt so drawn to him. The age difference is what created the power imbalance between them, that added tension to the overall story. And that ending was so....underwhelming. I usually don't mention side characters but Laure was one of the most irritating characters I've ever read. She was such a miserable human being. I couldn't stand her constant whining and phony personality. I think the strongest part of the novel was hearing Anna's backstory/upbringing by her controlling mother. That section felt the most compelling and real. It made me feel empathy towards Anna. In the end, this book felt pretty safe and lackluster. It had some beautiful moments, and the writing was dynamic, but it wasn't memorable. Ho-hum.

Thank you, Netgalley and Henry Holt for the digital ARC.

What I love about the privilege of netgalley is being exposed to books I wouldn’t normally have the chance to or be open to reading at first.
This one is also different from my usuals reads but there was something about it that drew me in and made me want to pick it up.
Premise
For readers of Sweetbitter and Luster, a razor-sharp debut novel about an ambitious young opera singer caught between devotion to her craft and an all-consuming affair with an older man.
I was familiar with Sweetbitter and enjoyed that quite a bit so I figured this would be along the same line. It was unique having an insiders view into the world of opera and following the protagonist through out her journey with an affair with a much older man. It was definitely a coming of age type book that I think many readers will enjoy.

A sharp, cutting novel about art, romance, money, and coming of age, A VERY NICE GIRL is a fantastic book that I hope doesn't get lost month the sea of similar books coming out these days. We follow Anna, a 24 year old opera student in London as she juggles auditions, voice lessons, and singing jazz at a hotel bar -- which is where she meets Max, a 38 year old who is recently separated. He wines and dines her, and before she knows it, she is fully obsessed and her life starts to deteriorate because of this love obsession. Imogen Crimp writes of infatuation with gorgeous prose and unyielding truth. As Max begins to help her with money issues, a whole new level of power comes into play as Anna questions her feminism (as well as the women she lives with).

This seems like a straightforward story, but the layers are complex and the book is certainly an unexpected page-turner. I felt like I was right there with Anna, trying to figure Max out and see where they were headed: a collision, or perhaps a happy ending? It was hard to tell, but I had to find out. I loved the immersion of the reader into what it's like to be at a vocal conservatory, and how Anna deals with her career in regards to her friends, family, money, and ultimately her love life. The year we follow her is at once thrilling and depressing, and this is one of the best debut novels I've ver come across because of it.

And yet, my bleeding heart.

This one is tough. It’s dense. It’s solid on which to chew.

A Very Nice Girl is the story of love and loss, but mostly of the in between. The hard lines. The muddied median. The toughest meat.

It is what every small, infinitesimal rejection shrouded in silent phones and empty nights and forgotten importances feels like when it sits on your chest. This is cold air in your lungs. This is pain.

I had so many strong emotions throughout this novel. I wanted to slap Anna while simultaneously wrapping her in my arms. I wanted to shake her and loosen the stupidity, rattle out the foolishness, break the bonds of nothingness Max offered. And Max. Oh, I love him and then I hated him, but mostly I just found him incredibly and undeniably typical. His desperate attempts at aloofness and superiority only served to show his true insecurities and flaws.

I’m not sure how I wanted it to end, but it ended perfectly all the same.



5/5 ✨

This book was really a delight to read. I loved the style and narrative voice and connected with the protagonist, in spite of my lack of understanding of the world of opera at all. Crimp seems to be in conversation with writers like Rooney and Dolan, so if you're a fan of them, you'll likely love this book. I really appreciated the role that class and income played in the text, and the way power dynamics function in both dating relationships and friendships. I finished this one in just a few sittings and found it an enthralling yet easy read.

Ultimately this was... fine. It had a lot of potential, but A Very Nice Girl ended up being a pretty surface-level dive into art and the inherent power struggle between older men and young women. It felt like it didnt have a super clear narrative path, but did have a lot of promise.

Did not finish. A teenage opera singer, trying to perfect her craft in bars and cafes in London, is pursued by a much older man. He takes advantage of her youth. She is flattered by the attention.

I received an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review

I liked this book, but it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be about art or the patriarchy. Not saying it couldn’t have been about both, it just didn’t seem like a very clear narrative path. 3.5 rounded up