Took me a second to get into, but was completely engrossed after a moment. Well written, well structured, a great time.

I don't think this was for me. I thought it was going to be funny and it wasn't. The sort of incest storyline was strange and pointless. Being obsessed with sleaze was not enough to justify that, Mira. The character just didn't seem real to me. I'm fine with someone being unlikeable or unrelatable but they have to seem real.

Why did they throw in the Chef drama at the end? Messy and poorly edited.

Great book and enjoyed the characters . loved the slight romance and the how well the group worked together. Overall a great book . I would read this author again.

This was an interesting one! I was really looking forward to this coming of age story about a girl working in an Alaska lodge who is obsessed with the idea of "sleaze" and an inappropriate crush she has on a distant family member. The blurb made it sound ~weird~ and that's always my jam. I love the unusual setting and while it's not super twisty, it's certainly an A+ character study with a surprising ending. It's snappy and you'll breeze though it, and I recommend going into it a little blind because it's a fun ride.

I feel like library journal oversold this one, It didn't live up to it's portrayal. A third round purchase for all libraries.

I loved the Alaskan backdrop, but the story itself felt disjointed and incomplete to me. The continual focus on the idea of “sleaze” felt like beating a dead horse by the end of the book - and the current day flashes of the narrator’s life felt arbitrary and unnecessary.

Published by ‎ Doubleday on June 7, 2022

Mira is attracted to sleaze. In fact, she’s obsessed with sleaze. Her very proper parents send her to Alaska for the summer when she’s 17. They hope Mira’s aunt will teach their wayward daughter the value of hard work. Mira is not a delinquent but she’s a poor student who lacks ambition. Her hidden ambition is to master the concept of sleaze, which seems to Mira to have “something to do with excess.” The job allows her to meet her stepcousin Ed, whose missing tooth inspires her sleazy masturbatory fantasies. She only sees Ed during a four-day period, but that’s enough to trigger fantasies of an erotic life together.

Mira returns to Alaska when she’s 18, having flunked out of high school. She takes a job as a baker at Lavender Island Wilderness Lodge. Only a handful of characters live at the resort. Stu and Maureen own the place. Polly and Erin are recent high school graduates who guide guests on their wilderness adventures. A taciturn chef who grumbles about insufficient supplies rounds out the staff.

Maureen likes to tell guests about the virtues of living in God’s country. Stu, who is having an affair with Erin after starting one with Polly, is less interested in virtuous living. Polly is bummed because she came to Alaska with the expectation that the affair would continue. Maureen is bummed, although she usually tries not to show it, because she knows what Stu is doing. The chef has a problem with anger and alcohol. Mira repeats the phrase “soft sweater” over and over when she’s having a panic attack. Each character disintegrates a bit each day as the long summer moves toward darkness until, at the novel’s end, the pace of the disintegration escalates.

Mira spends her days baking, cleaning, dumping trash into the ocean (an odd choice for an eco-lodge), and serving guests. When she’s not working, she’s usually masturbating to fantasies of Ed, fantasies that she revises while imagining them, improving the story as it leads to her climax. Oddly, Mira is probably the most emotionally healthy of the resort’s staff members. Guests, watching the staff interact, sometimes wonder whether they’ve chosen a poor vacation destination.

The reader learns that Mira is now an adult. She is recounting this story from her past, filling in details from the present — Erin’s marriage, Polly’s adoption of a dog after visiting Thailand — that she seems to have gleaned from Facebook. When details are scarce, she uses her imagination to fill the gaps.

The sleaze theme doesn’t work very well, in part because Mira never quite grasps the meaning of sleaze. She learns that sleaze cannot be hunted because it only finds the wholesome. Maybe that means that only the wholesome recognize sleaze as sleazy. I'm not sure what, if anything, the reader should take from Mira's musings about sleaze, apart from the groundwork they lay for Mira's frantic masturbation.

Despite not quite following Mira’s thoughts about sleaze, I admire Rebecca Rukeyser’s creativity. Later in Mira’s life, an addict will compare morphine to a high school snow day, when a teen can anticipate sleeping late before savoring porn during a leisurely afternoon. That's a clever comparison. The contrast between Mira’s genuine and Maureen’s feigned sunniness is amusing, as are the triggers for Mira’s fantasies (thinking about something that Ed might have touched once or looking up his name in the phone book are sufficiently stimulating to get her off). The novel’s increasing darkness is offset by Mira’s steadiness, her refusal to succumb to the fear of bears or jellyfish or unrequited desire. Readers who appreciate the unexpected will find much to appreciate in The Seaplane on Final Approach.

RECOMMENDED

DNF at 35%. At this point I still have no idea what this book is trying to do, no one is even remotely likeable or interesting, and so many things are not doing it for me. The main character is inexplicably obsessed with <i>sleaze,</i> (it’s very often italicized) but we don’t know why - I feel like an explanation could have helped us understand and get to know her better. This point didn’t necessarily bother me because I remember being a mess of an 18 year old and horny narrators are usually fun and/or interesting, but that wasn’t the case for me here. The writing hasn’t drawn me in at all and I reached the point of “I don’t care” 10% ago. Agree with other reviews saying there’s a disconnect between the blurb and the story, if it had been more accurately described it’s likely I wouldn’t have picked it up in the first place. I usually don’t rate a book if I haven’t reached the halfway point, but if I were to rate what I read so far it would be 2⭐️.

<i>Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital ARC of this book.</i>

This one never quite Got There for me. Every story line just wasn't as fleshed out as I had hoped it would be and the writing, while at times very well done, ended up being pretty surface level most of the time. That said I thought that the setting and the concept of sleaze were unique enough that it deserves 3 stars.

Dark it was, but humorous it was not. I had high hopes for The Seaplane on Final Approach but ultimately it fell flat for me. Beyond one moment towards the end of the book, it was largely predictable and I found myself glancing ahead to see how much longer it would drag out. The narrator's obsession with 'sleaze' was difficult to connect with or even understand. Much like the narrator who provides 'glances' into the future that indicate that she's looking back at what she learned from the summer, perhaps I too need some time to reflect on the novel a bit further and see if my opinion changes.

Well, this book was not at all what I was expecting. I was expecting fun and hilarious and instead I was thrust into the horny/immature mind of a teenage girl who fantasizes about her ex-stepcousin. All the characters are dysfunctional and the whole story is a train-wreck. I enjoyed the Alaskan imagery but that's really it.

Read this if you like: Tourists stories, teen narrators, forbidden love

Tourists arrive all summer, by boat or seaplane at Lavender Island Wilderness Lodge in Alaska. But the spontaneity of their authentic Alaskan wilderness experience is meticulously scripted, except when real danger rears its head. Stu and Maureen's lodge is failing, as is their marriage.

Mira has been hired for the season as the lodge's baker and housekeeper. By midseason, it becomes clear that Stu, thepredatory patriarch of the lodge, has turned his sexual attentions to another young employee. As the mood of the lodge spirals into chaos, the inhabitants realize just how isolated Lavender Island really is.

I'm so confused by this book because the description given is not necessarily what happened. This book is described as hilarious and sensual. The narrator is a teenager who is quite horny. Honestly that's the point of the whole book. This book is just plain weird and not in a good way. I didn't love it. It's a quick read so if it sounds interesting to you then definitely grab it June 7th!

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and DoubleDay Books for the gifted copy! ❤️

First - know that Mira, the narrator, is not as libidinous as the promo materials suggest and equally importantly, this isn't exactly hilarious. That said it's a well written and intriguing coming of age story set over several months at an Alaskan lodge. Mira, who has struggled at home, found she loved Alaska when she was sent to live with her aunt as a sort of punishment. She also fell for Ed, who becomes a sort of obsession who she hopes to see again. Her aunt has died and now she's spending the summer as a baker for Maureen and Stu. Rukeyser does a great job with the day to day of working at a resort and creates terrific characters in the visitors (the Swedes! the Vermonters, and so on). Erin and Polly, the other two young women who work there know something Mira does not and it is this that creates the tension in the novel. Mira imagines their futures, as well as those of Maureen and Stu- and includes what really does happen to them. The ending of this feels abrupt until you realize that it has been building all along. Mira's got a strong voice, the writing is good, and the storytelling is terrific. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Great read.

This was really not the book for me. I was hoping for a steamy romance with some drama, but unfortunately, all I got was cringe.

1/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday Books, Doubleday for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“I was a nice girl from a nice home, with little in the way of skills and the past that shapes everyone - immersive games, immersive lust, a preoccupation with making our rooms our own, a hatred as vague as the thick end of a lighthouse beam that we swoop at anyone that crosses us. My ferocity was leveled at becoming.”

THE SEAPLANE ON FINAL APPROACH is a weird, sharp little book about a teenage girl who spends a summer working at an isolated lodge for tourists in the Alaskan wilderness. I’m not sure how I feel about this one but I had a fabulous time reading it. The writing is engrossing, darkly funny, and deeply observant; there were moments throughout where the author captures something both specific and banal with the perfect phrase. The narrator, Mira, is delightfully strange: horny, obsessive, disaffected for no particular reason, caught up in her own fantasies. She’s both repellent and universal; we cringe because we also relate. Mira perseverates on the meaning of sleaze, collecting specimens and theorizing about its origins, and creates elaborate dreams about her future with a fisherman, Ed, whom she believes to be the epitome of sleaze. The story focuses on her time at the wilderness lodge, run by a married couple and staffed by a chef, two other teenage girls who’ve just graduated high school, and herself as the baker and domestic help. In its own way, the story is about female sexuality as it moves from childhood into adulthood: the pleasure of the illicit, the way shame is often tied to the evolution of sexuality, the inherent danger of being a young woman in the presence of men. As the novel progressed I began to think of Mira’s fascination with and intense study of sleaze to be a way for her to understand and control what can feel so terrifying: the male gaze, the attentions of men, the daily realities of life as a woman. There was something lacking for me emotionally here though. This sounds strange to say but it helped to think of the novel’s cast as fictional characters instead of real people; they lacked dimensionality but played off of each other and the story arc well. There’s a decidedly menacing air about the novel, heightened by the remote setting with its many hazards, but I found the expectedly violent ending a bit flat. I think it’s the kind of book that’s more about the journey than the destination. And, well, you know if Carmen Maria Machado describes a book as “sexy and dark and strange and absolutely perfect”, I’m reading it. Thanks to Doubleday Books for the review copy!

Content warnings: injury/blood, death

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My Selling Pitch:
Do you want to read about atmospheric Alaska coupled with this oozy, discomforting undercurrent? Like the idea of not being able to pinpoint if it’s vaguely horny or just concerning? Want oddball descriptions that are startlingly accurate but phrases you haven’t thought of or heard before? Do you like books that you’re not sure how to feel about?

Pre-reading:
Where Carmen Maria Machado points, I go. This is my 300th book on Goodreads. That’s wild.

Thick of it:
You can hunt octopus with bleach? I googled. Apparently you can. It’s just super harmful to the environment. It's got lovely, specific, honest visuals. I like the Panther story. So puzzled by her attraction to this mans. But like gorgeous sleaze. Such gorgeous visuals. Oh fuck, I don’t want to be like Erin lol. I’m so glad someone else has come to this conclusion about names. I no longer feel alone in it. Maureen’s a cunt. Where’s a modern homemaker show where there’s no twist to make her badass? She’s just exactly what she is, and that’s it. And it’s still good. Where’s that? Iwant it. Oh this book ends fast.

Post-reading:
I think I want to like this more than I actually do. I don’t find anything hilarious about this book. Maybe fever dream delirious, but not hilarious in any way. Not much happens; it’s more just lovely visuals. So like atmospheric short story, great. Meaty plot, absolutely empty. I feel like it could’ve just gone on. I feel like she could’ve gone somewhere else and found sleaze and then it would’ve been a more interesting comparison between Northern sleaze and, I don’t know, maybe Southern sleaze with like dripping sweat and peaches crushed in fists and the stickiness of it. I don’t know, all that being said, I think it’s interesting musings and worth reading just for that. Something about it vaguely reminds me of Of Mice and Men too. I feel like that book was also just visuals and then abruptly something else that car crashes into its ending.

Who should read this:
If you value atmosphere/vibes above everything (even plot)
The idea of musings on sleaze interests you

Do I want to reread this:
No? But I’d glance through my quote pulls again

Similar books:
* Corinne by Rebecca Morrow-odd love interests, unapologetic, unaesthetic visuals
* My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh-niche and vivid visuals
* Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado-if you dug the writer’s retreat story-more kinda oddball musing
* Bunny by Mona Awad-another book that I liked, but think is odd, and feel mildly dissatisfied by. And yet still like it?
* Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck-visuals with a tone shift ending

Have you all seen the story about the woman who kept notes on a lifetime of reading, then after her death, her family found the code she used to rate books? "Readable Piffle" was one of her ratings.

This book is Readable Piffle.

There are some fine sentences, some mildly funny observations, and the beginnings of a darkly comedic, interesting book here. But Rukeyser never gets beyond the surface of the premise. Why is Mira obsessed with sleaze? Why is Maureen & Stu's marriage falling apart? The book synopsis says this book is "charged with menace," and, primed by that blurb, I did spend most of the book waiting for danger. But when something finally happened, it felt inconsequential. And that's ultimately how I felt about the whole book: it was fine but nothing that will stick with me.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy

I don't know if I've ever seen such a disconnect between a book blub and the actual contents of the book - but perhaps I haven't read enough. The blub describes this story as "psychologically razor sharp" and says the characters "tear aside the façade of good manners to reveal all of our deepest needs and naked desires," but that wasn't the case for me. I also found no humor - maybe it went over my head. The "sensuality" was more like overt perviness (which is fine, but not sensual). Also - menace? - no. There were no real stakes by the time the "real danger" arrived as I could not bring myself to care about a single one of the one dimensional characters or what happened to them.

Mira is the main character with the entire story told from her perspective. She is an oddball, completely obsessed with the concept of "sleaze" as well as the idea of a future with her admittedly sleazy step-cousin Ed (ew). The rest of the cast is a handful of archetypes in the background for Mira to observe and speculate on, but they are barely important. Most of the story takes place inside Mira's head and there is minimal plot to speak of. I have no issue with character-focused books that skimp on plot, but somehow this skimped on characters and plot and we're left with the musings of an odd, horny teenager on a remote island with a smattering of melodrama.

It really felt like this book was trying to DO something - find some deep meaning? Tell an important tale of a failing homestead? I really don't know. But it certainly doesn't match the blurb. The writing isn't unpleasant to read and the rapid-fire-chapters speed up the reading pace, but if you are expecting tension and sensuality, it's not here. This is more...shallow angst of a teenager trying to be cerebral.

This is a pretty bizarre book and I really love it haha- its funny and relatable, but so different from anything else you’d use those descriptors for. Enjoyable debut!

I'm glad I went into this novel totally blind. What a quirky and trippy little story. This is a great debut. I really enjoyed Rebecca Rukeyser's writing style. It was simple but packed a punch. The story flowed nicely, and nothing was overdone and awkward. I also really liked the foreshadowing. Everything made perfect sense and it tide up the ending in a satisfying way. I think this was first time I didn't mind reading the point-of-view of a horny, but lonely teenage girl, Mira. Great coming-of-age story of a girl discovering her sexuality. But mostly, I liked all the characters on the homestead/wilderness lodge. Maureen and Stu were a great dysfunctional couple. I really enjoy stories that take place in Alaska, and this one didn't disappoint. This was a quick and snappy read. Only 10 chapters, not too long, and not too short. The ending was straight-up slapstick and yet tragic as well. If you like quirky reads, you will enjoy this. And the cover art is gorgeous!

Thank you, Netgalley and Doubleday for the digital ARC.