I am absolutely blown away by this book. I read it weeks ago, and I think about it all the time. I can't gush enough about what this book was for me, but I'll try not to go on forever (I could!).

Ripe is a unique and introspective exploration of mental health, corporate culture, and the absurdities of modern life. The protagonist, Cassie, is a millennial woman working at a Silicon Valley startup. She is trapped in a toxic corporate culture, working long hours and dealing with unethical projects, all while trying to reconcile the stark contrast between the city's obscene wealth and abject poverty. Throughout the book, Cassie's struggles with depression and anxiety are personified by an amorphous black hole that has been her constant companion since childhood. This black hole feeds on her distress and draws her ever-closer as the world around her unravels.

As I read this book, I found myself emotionally invested in Cassie's journey. The writing style is sharp yet vulnerable, funny yet unsettling, and it made me feel like I was living the story alongside her. I found myself constantly rooting for Cassie and hoping that she would find a way to escape the toxic culture she was trapped in and overcome her mental health struggles. I came away from it feeling incredibly raw.

One of the things I loved most about this book was how it tackled the subject of mental health. The personification of Cassie's depression and anxiety through the black hole was such a unique and brilliant way of exploring this topic. It made the struggles feel real and tangible, and I think it will resonate with anyone who has ever dealt with mental health issues. It's really what sold the book once and for all to me.

Overall, I highly recommend "Ripe" to anyone who is looking for a thought-provoking and emotionally charged read. The book offers such a unique and reflective take on our shared journey through a late-capitalist hellscape, and all the bullshit that becomes collateral as a result. For my fellow cynics and my fellow depressi's this is for us.

Thanks so so much to Scribner as well as NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of Ripe ahead of its release in July 2023

What first drew me to this book was the cover. The deep dark red made me interested. I didn’t really pay too much attention to summary and it was only after I started reading the novel that I briefly looked at the summary. This is a short book but it really packs a punch and dives into some dark places. Because of the subject matter I took it slow only reading it one chapter at a time at first but at about the halfway point I couldn’t put it down. This book really made me think.

I LOVE THIS BOOK!! Sarah Rose Etter manages to write about Life As We Know It (big tech, modern dating, daughterhood...) in a wholly unique way--I don't feel like the narrator and I are simply commiserating. Abstract sci-fi set in an ever so slightly surreal reality. Relatable but refreshing. I'm so excited to be able to share this book with the bookbuying world this summer!!!!

4.5🌟

I am a sucker for books that showcase depression and anxiety that consume every waking part of someone's day to day lifestyle.

This book follow's Cassie, a Silicon Valley Tech who's life is devoured by an ominous blackhole of depression and anxiety that seems to loom over her like a dark cloud.
This book touches on the rat race that most millennials living in cities face as they enter the work force.
Humans are not designed to live this fast paced lifestyle where they feel like they can't keep up with consumer debt and advanced technology. Most people who live life this cannot achieve their goal without the help of stimulating drugs. High amounts of dopamine in an abnormal setting creates a false sense of happiness and please, but when the high comes down, the depression sets in.

Although Cassie knows she is different from the rest of the people she comes across, she still gives into this abnormal lifestyle where she is burnt out and miserable. Yet, in the morning she chooses the same lifestyle all over again.

I think that most people tend to forget that they're in charge of their own happiness and you can't find the answer to your problems through drugs and sex.
As much as Cassie thinks she's different, she is still giving into the same system that is destroying her.

Thank you to NetGalley for letting me read this!

After loving The Book of X, I had high expectations for this that unfortunately weren’t met. I hated the set up of the chapter titles as definitions and felt that it got old very quickly. I wanted more character development and backstories. The ending just kind of flopped on by as well. I did enjoy the actual story but wished there was a lot more to it.

The sort of novel I wish I’d written. A cutting, heartbreaking take on life just as COVID first started, what it was to feel like the world was dying and everyone was scared and everything seemed a little futile. This is also a searing take on corporate life against the backdrop of wildfires. It took me almost a month to finish this because of my own busy corporate job, fittingly enough. But I loved it.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC! This book is out now.

I wasn’t really a fan of this one. It’s nice as a profound and poetic take on capitalist tech culture but I didn’t really enjoy it as a story. I kept waiting for something to happen but nothing ever did. Cassie’s life is terrible: her job is terrible, her love life is terrible, her family is terrible, the city is terrible — I get it. It was kind of repetitive and it lacked any real climax.

Also, be warned that this is sort of a Covid book. It takes place in the first weeks of the pandemic and makes frequent mention of Covid.

Overall, I think this book is fine, it’s just not my cup of tea. But I did enjoy Etter’s poetic writing style and I liked the concept of Cassie's black hole.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

This was an impressive book. It was dark and raw. The references to the fruit, along with each chapter beginning with a specific word and definition was beautiful. There was plenty of metaphor which I could also see being classified as hints of magical realism.

This was an emotional book with many sensitive topics including or eluding to pregnancy, abusive relationships, suicide, and abortion.

I recommend this if you are familiar with the absurd nature that the tech industry operates at. Also, if you are fed up with this world and want to feel sad. This book made me realize how lonely life can get.

I’ve been looking forward to this novel ever since I saw the cover (which is absolutely eye-catching and stunning) and read the premise, so I was beyond excited to receive an ARC from NetGalley. And wow. There was so much about this novel that I loved, even though it is in no way a happy or joyful read. Etter’s voice is so powerful; biting and bracing and intense. I found myself annotating line after line, aching at the bittersweet beauty of the main character Cassie’s thoughts & feelings. I loved how this novel explored class systems. segregated cities and communities; the difference between the haves and the have-nots. She really captured how soulless corporate America is, captured the struggle of trying to find yourself when you feel your future is already planned out, yawning dark and cavernous in front of you. The struggle in trying to save your own soul before it is irreparably damaged, selling out just to rise in the pyramid….so much of this novel resonated with me, but I don’t know that I have the words to adequately describe the experience of reading this novel. The ending left a tiny bit to be desired, but at the same time, I had already guessed that this novel might end the way it does. Overall just a stunningly beautiful melancholic novel that I will likely return to again and again anytime I’d like something toothsome to read.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, the publisher and the author.

I'm half convinced this book was an alternative reality I had about me working in the tech industry, but it was not.

Ripe follows Cassie, a senior officer navigating her way through a start-up Silicon Valley company with a black hole following her around her day to day life.

I liked the way this book was structured with its Oxford definitions of words and listing off examples in Cassie's life—both past and present. It's definitely an interesting book, one of the most interesting I've read all year. I think it's probably because I live in Silicon Valley that made this hit closer (literally) to home. Ripe gives you insight on the tech industry as a whole and how it's not always as glamorous as it seems. It shows you the stresses of the industry and just how people are trying to survive. I also loved the metaphorical "black hole," the way it represents depression and anxiety, was artfully done.

I wouldn't recommend this book to everyone since it felt a little heavy(?), but if you do happen to pick it up, you won't be disappointed.

I am currently screaming omg, omg, omg to my fiancé who doesn’t care about books. This was one of the best books I think I’ve ever read? I loved everything about it from the writing style, main character, my feelings growing every chapter.

I am going to need time to process for a real review. But I LOVED this and really believe I will think about it for a very long time.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC, this book truly exceeded my expectations.

Wow, what a book. Ripe leaves you cracked open like a freshly cracked pomegranate, innards out on display for everyone to see.

Ripe is the story of Cassie, a 30-something year old woman who finds herself in a high-level marketing job for a Silicon Valley start-up company that deals in data. She also has a nice apartment, successful friends and a seemingly perfect lover.

Cassie's life sounds like a dream but the environment of extreme wealth and fortune is only a thin gold film covering the rot that lays beneath, a rot that eats away at Cassie's sanity throughout the novel.

At the end of Ripe, I was left with the feeling that I had finished reading a long-lost journal of mine or someone who I possibly could have been. In this late capitalist world, the push from family, friends, our job and society to constantly perform has pushed us to the edge of the cliff-- a cliff that I've seen myself on the edge of many a time.

I found myself relating very heavily to the main character's anxiety, depression and existential dread. With each page I turned, I became even more of my own black hole sitting in my periphery waiting to suck me in. Would I be fortunate enough not to get sucked into it?

Author Sarah Rose Etter holds up a mirror to our reality and asks us if this is who we want to be, and if we can escape this nightmare that society has bought itself into.

Ripe is a wonderful, engaging read and I would recommend it to readers who enjoy narrative takes on the consequences of late-stage capitalism and stories about complex characters struggling against a society that is hard-pressed to change.

I was very excited about beginning this book because of the black hole representing anxiety/depression/darkness. I can understand how many jobs, especially in this particular Silicon Valley tech culture, contribute to someone's mental state. As a person who moved away from their hometown, and family when younger, I could relate to Cassie's loneliness and struggles with career/ friendship/ situation ship vs a relationship in this book.

I did enjoy the book, but felt a little let down at the ending. Just happens sometimes I guess. I imagine our character was quite let down too. May be the helpless / hopelessness is a huge part of the book. No spoiler here. The subject was quite heavy and even a little anxiety inducing. I also loved the cover.

Not one of my favorite reads of the year, but I am glad I read it.

I was given this ARC for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

A whirlwind tale of corporate burnout, motherhood, and loneliness in the working world. Haunting and hardhitting, Etter's latest embodies everything we love about sad girl fiction. "Ripe" will resonate with fans of "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once," and "Nightbitch."

This book made me feel uneasy in the best way. I was hooked from the very beginning and was captivated by the prose. One of the best literary fiction books I’ve read in the past few years.

A ode to high functioning anxiety ridden sad girls everywhere. It brought memories of mine that were crystallized into existence from the dark cave that is my black hole. It spoke the inner workings of my mind and wrote them down in ink where I couldn’t hide.

This book is fantastic. I loved it so.

4.5 ⭐️ I could not put this one down from the moment I started it. Fellow fans of the unhinged girlies / female malaise genre are going to eat this up when it gets released. I haven’t read any of Sarah Rose Setter’s previous books but after reading this one, I cannot wait to read more by her. Highly recommended for fans of Severance by Ling Ma, The New Me and/or Jillian by Halle Butler and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh.

Big thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for the e-ARC!

3.5 stars but rounded up because I highlighted a lot of quotes and enjoyed the writing a lot.

I'm going to start with the things I really enjoyed. Our protagonist Cassie is one year into her new job and life in tech in California, where she lives in downtown San Francisco but works in Silicon Valley. This book takes place in the months leading up to covid, and you see it slowly creep up in news articles as Cassie struggles with the black hole of anxiety and depression that has followed her around since childhood, which often flares up as she is faced with ethical struggles at work as well as the cost of living in San Francisco, which she struggles with as a middle class person who only recently started making good money.

I loved the metaphor of a black hole as anxiety and depression, especially how it can sometimes become almost a comfort at times. This feels so real to how mental illness feels. I also really loved the depictions of being a millennial in the corporate world, especially tech, and I could absolutely relate to having a "fake self-" how often are you having the worst day ever but when you have a meeting you say "oh i'm great, it's sunny here today!" just so you don't disrupt the social norms of a corporate workplace? Very relatable.

I also want to shout out how abortion is normalized in this book as a tough thing to experience but something Cassie never really wavers on, and handles even as it is expensive, isolating, and painful.

Now for the things that didn't quite work for me. I have some issues with the way privilege is handled in this book. Yes, Cassie is middle class and barely making it, but the way homelessness is portrayed just didn't quite work for me. I wish she and her friend Maria had done more than go to one protest. There are a lot of ways to get involved in your community in this hellscape of modern urban life beyond just saying "wow it's so awful I saw someone shooting heroin and defecating in public today," but the commentary on this never went beyond those comments. There was also only one scene where Cassie realizes there are working class folks in the city, which is when she takes the train outside of rush hour. Maybe this shows that the narrative is limited by her perspective and we are supposed to feel she is privileged, but that juxtaposed with her retired father working at a grocery store out of need just didn't quite jive for me. Cassie did recognize her privilege when hiring an employee in Pakistan, which I appreciated and worked as a commentary on the global dominance of Silicon Valley.

I do also agree with those who say this got a little repetitive. It could've maybe been edited down a bit and still have the same impact.

I will be ruminating on the ending of this book for a long time. Dark but provocative.

Overall, I highly recommend this look at modern capitalism. Thank you to Scribner for the eARC!

RIPE is astonishing: mean, sad, beautiful, funny. I finished it two weeks ago and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It’s wonderful to see labor written in this way; the authenticity of how much space and time work takes up in a person’s life is juxtaposed with the surreality of Cassie’s vision and surroundings, bringing the reader into a sort of liminal state where you can’t be sure if you’re dreaming. I will be telling everyone to read this book.

Gorgeous, devastating prose. A descent into the mundane realities of a consumerist world intent only on eating. Loved every moment. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.