I received an egalley of this book in exchange for an honest review from Netgalley.

I am pretty conflicted about this book. Billed as a “reverse Lolita”, the book follows 14 year old Swanna as her summer comes to an end and she meets a man 20 years her senior. While some other reviewers were disturbed that the book painted Swanna as the influencer in the relationship, I didn’t get that vibe at all and I don’t believe the author meant to excuse the man (David). The book is simply written from Swanna’s point of view and with her observations and interpretations only.

This was a quick, absorbing read, but left me feeling sad and a little uncomfortable. As others mention, I wish there had been more resolution for Swanna and the other characters involved.

I love me an 80's setting and this twisty, unique story. It's funny even though the topic of a teenager having an affair with a man old enough to be her father is anything but humorous, but the coming-of-age aspect is still relatable.

Thanks to Akashic Books for the copy to review.

DNF - I liked the idea of this story more than I appreciated the actual product. That's not to say that it was a bad book, on the contrary, I know this will find its audience & they will adore it. I simply couldn't get into the narration which I suppose is a reflection of a job well done by the author as she made it authentic.

I've struggled to gather my thoughts on this, because I truthfully also struggled to finish it. I started and stopped it many times over the last few months.
The thing I liked the most about Swanna in Love is that, as it feels like a character study, I think the author very accurately depicted the headspace of a teenage girl.
But, what detracted from the book, is that every concept introduced fell a little flat. Nothing was explored in depth enough to resonate. Possibly this was intentional, as it WAS from the perspective of a teenager, and not a reflection from an adult.
I greatly appreciate the opportunity to read the novel, and hope it finds it's readers!

Agh, this is such a bummer. I was really looking forward to this one and couldn't get past the first 40 pages. Everyone enjoys a slow burn from time to time, but I just couldn't get into this one at all. I am still very thankful to the publisher and author for sending this one my way, but it just wasn't for me.

Ooooofff. This book is SO good and so much to take in. Swanna is a 14 year old in 1982, swaddled with an absolutely infuriatingly terrible mother and an absent father. After her mom is 8 hours later to pick her up from summer camp, she takes her and her younger brother to an artist residency in Vermont with her new sculptor boyfriend. One catch - kids aren't allowed so they have to sleep outside in the back of a pick-up truck. This is just the start of the journey Swanna tried to make to get back home to New York City and her own bed.

Swanna is an extremely complicated character. She may talk like she's a 27 year old wiseass New Yorker, but then she'll do things in the next moment to remind you she's just a kid. Unfortunately, an older man takes advantage of this and a disturbing, frustrating, and illegal relationship develops. Swanna confuses love with just wanting to get out of her situation, and it's heartbreaking to experience along with her. This book is incredibly written and engaging, and will stay with me for a long time. It's not for the faint of heart, but it's an incredible read.

It’s 1982, summer camp is over, Swanna’s flighty New York City elitist parents are getting a divorce and they’ve both taken a new lover. Swanna is well educated, wonderfully articulate for someone a mere 14 years old, and quite protective of her younger brother, who is seemingly just happy to exist. So, when she meets an older man at a bowling alley after being forced to suffer through an artist’s retreat (where children aren’t welcome) with her narcissistic mother and new Russian beau in a sleepy area of Vermont, she decides she’s going to do things her way. She's going to find her own way home.

I didn’t hesitate for even a moment when it came to requesting this ARC from NetGalley. Everything about the synopsis is right up my alley. This is a book for book lovers, plenty of literary players are name-dropped as family friends, various classic books are discussed, and even the names of Swanna and her brother, Madding, relate to literature. Swanna’s clever and precocious internal and external voice initially had me giggling along. However, as the story went on I became more and more unnerved by the flippant attitude of a 14-year-old in the dynamic of her “seducing” a mid-thirties, married, father of two. With a still very childish point of view and the guidance of Judy Blume novels, fellow 14-year-olds, and what she thinks she understands about her parent’s various affairs, I expected something more innocent— more naive, insecure, and fumbling, perhaps. That is not what we get here. While it is coming-of-age and relatable to a degree as someone who once was a young teen girl, something never sat quite right. I do realize that’s often the point of novels of similar subject matter, but this one didn’t quite make the mark for me.

In the end, I couldn’t decide how I felt about the novel overall. It didn’t disappoint on the premise promised, but it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, either. The author does a fantastic job capturing the essence of deplorable adults, but it felt like the perspective of an actual 14-year-old got lost somewhere on the road in the bed of the truck driving away from summer camp.

Really enjoyed this book as a whole, especially the perspective. That is until the gushing about Catcher in the Rye. Never have been a fan of that book so that part of this book really put me off.

Other than that it is what it says on the tin. A reverse Lolita with decent prose.

I was initially thrilled to receive an ARC for 'Swanna In Love' as it featured one of my favorite tropes involving an underage main character engaged in an inappropriate relationship with an adult.

However, upon delving into the book, I found that it didn't quite resonate with me. One of my primary grievances is that the author excelled a bit too much in crafting insufferable characters. The mother in the story, in particular, evoked such strong negative emotions that I struggled to maintain interest in finishing the book.

Furthermore, I couldn't help but notice that the situations Swanna found herself in appeared more mature than what a typical 14-year-old would be familiar with. The inconsistency in her portrayal, transitioning from apparent inexperience at the beginning of the book to engaging in mature scenarios, was a bit perplexing.

Despite this not being the right fit for me, I intend to recommend it to others, recognizing that different readers may thoroughly enjoy the aspects that didn't appeal to me.

“𝙄’𝙢 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙖𝙩𝙝 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪,” 𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙞𝙙.
Swanna Swain’s parents are divorcing, which is why she is attending summer camp to begin with, and it is also why her mother is spending her time at an artist’s colony. Now that camp has come to an end and school will be starting in a little over a week, she is headed to her father in New York. She is surprised when she is told to get off the bus. It doesn’t matter to the counselors that there must be a mistake, next thing she knows her bags are being removed and she is left in the dust. The place empties out, the office is closed, and no one answers when she calls her father collect from the phone booth (it’s the 80’s, no handy cell phone). Marooned, she has no choice but to wait, sure her mother isn’t coming, she closes her eyes waiting with her luggage on the grassy hill, thinking of what she will do. But her mother does arrive, with Borislav, her new Russian boyfriend (fellow artist) in tow. After picking up her little brother from his camp, they head to an Artist’s Colony in Vermont, a place where children are not allowed. This doesn’t put her mother off, she is Borislav’s muse, she can’t possibly leave.

Her mother’s impulsive behavior is infuriating, and her attraction to Borislav is insane because he is from Jersey, he doesn’t have the sophistication of New Yorkers like her, Swanna thinks. It only gets worse, banned from sleeping indoors she and her little brother sleep outside in the truck, all she wants is to go home, instead they go bowling where she meets an older man, a doctor. She teases him, playing at being sexy. Much later, when she hitches a ride with him, the seduction begins along with more lies.

Swanna wants experience, she is playing with fire and likes it, too much. Dennis is hot for her, this is going way further than eye contact, like she and her best friend got up to this summer. Dennis is married, has children and just can’t help himself, really- he tells her he should take her back. He hasn’t done this before, an excuse as old as time, and yet it doesn’t stop him from taking her to a hotel. With a mother like Swanna’s, a girl can get up to all kinds of trouble. She may come off as grown up with her intelligence and sarcasm, but she is wounded by the mess her parents have made of their marriage, their lack of attention and the ideas of sex and love she has been picking up from the world around her. It’s disturbing how her perception of the ‘affair’ is warped by her youthful innocence because she isn’t a monster, she’s just a kid. This won’t end well.

Dennis isn’t about protecting anyone but himself, but Swanna will have to learn the hard way, and there is nothing sexy about his feelings for her. A disturbing read, if only someone was looking out for Swanna, then she wouldn’t be putting herself in terrible situations. Are her insights funny, sure, inexperienced people can convince themselves of all sorts of mad ideas but there is nothing humorous about Dennis. Everything happens fast, and I admit, I didn’t expect what happened to be the big wake up call. A solid read, but the sexual parts are unnerving.

Publication Date: January 30, 2024

Akashic Books

…Where do i even start?

Swanna in Love is a book about girlhood, about experiencing life recklessly, boldly, how you think you should when youre young, how you think you should when you don’t understand life yet.

I read this book in one sitting, it was easy to read, flowed very well, the story was interesting. I was expecting some sort of realization from the main character of her wrong doings, and the ending fell a little short. Perhaps it was rushed? Or changed?

Either way, I am grateful for the ARC via netgalley. Thank you! What an interesting read! 3.5/5 rounded up!

Fun read but not as compelling as her previous books--I liked the narrator but the plot felt somewhat arbitrary and disjointed.

I have loved Jennifer Belle since Going Down and High Maintenance, so I was dying to read this book, and it did not disappoint. Belle has a unique, quirky, laugh out loud sense of humor, and so do her narrators. In this case, the titular character Swanna is a 15-year-old child who is witty and wise beyond her years.... but still just a young teenager without present parents. So one summer, at an artists' colony she was dragged to as an afterthought by her kooky mother and her weird new boyfriend, Swanna enters into a romantic relationship with an adult man -- a father of kids, a doctor, and a dude who should certainly know better than to have sex with a child.

We hear the relationship from Swanna's painfully youthful, Comsmoplotan-magazine reading perspective. The subject matter is of course controversial but handled delicately and sensitively as we follow Swanna's desire to be loved and parented, when all the adults in her life have totally checked out on her. We also see her suitor, the adult man, grow from the romanticized boyfriend figure she first sees (which of course we doubt, knowing his age) into the total creep he actually is, but all with much more nuance and sensitivity than you can imagine.

This book won't be for everyone but it was definitely for me, with all the humor, sensitivity and wisdom of Belle's previous books, and like all her other books, it will break your heart a little, especially the ending.

I love everything Jennifer Belle writes and I can't wait for her next effort. 5🌟s to this always unique and hilarious voice.

t's complicated. Part of me liked this. The writing is good. It's funny and insightful and gets into the mind of a horny 14-year-old girl. But then....it's also quite disturbing to think that this is a 14-year-old girl having an affair with a married 37-year-old man.

Told as a reverse view Lolita, Swanna in Love by Jennifer Belle is the story of Swanna Swain and the two or so weeks after camp and before school starts in the summer of 1982. Instead of taking the bus back to New York, she is pulled off the bus and told her mother is picking her up. As the last person at camp, she's left to wander around for hours, remembering the weeks and her innocence.

When her mother arrives, everything has changed. There is a man with her, a new lover, an 'artist'. Instead of going home, they will be going to an artist colony. Children aren't allowed so Swanna and her brother must sleep outside in the back of a truck. Soon, Swanna meets Dennis, a married doctor, and begins a love affair.

This is the story of a lost 14-year-old girl the summer her parents divorced. It's sad, it's funny, it's disturbing. There are sexually explicit parts that I feel are above a normal 14-year-old's head, but what do I know....I haven't been 14 in 30 years.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book was absolutely phenomenal, a total riot. Swanna is as unreliable a narrator as they come, and the story ran along smoothly on laughs and shock-value. My one complaint is the ending—the last chapter didn't fit the story at all, so I took one star off for that.

I recently read Swanna in Love by Jennifer Belle, and it was a fascinating and thought-provoking read that left me with mixed feelings. The story is about Swanna Swain, a fourteen-year-old girl who finds herself dragged to an artist colony in Vermont by her stoned and radiant mother, Val and her new Russian lover Borislav. Swanna and her younger brother, Madding, are forced to sleep in the back of the truck while Val is cozy inside the house with the Russian. However, things take an unexpected turn when Swanna meets Dennis, a handsome married father of two, at a bowling alley, and sets out to seduce him.

The book explores adolescent desire from a girl's point of view and is in some ways an inverse Lolita. The author has done an excellent job of creating relatable characters that are easy to connect with. Swanna's struggles with her complicated family situation and her desire for a man who is off-limits are something that many readers will be able to relate to.

Swanna in Love is a well-written and engaging book that will keep you hooked until the end. The plot is well-crafted, and the pacing is perfect. The book is both hilarious and wildly shocking, which makes for a fascinating and thought-provoking read.

Overall, I highly recommend Swanna in Love to anyone who loves a good coming-of-age story. It's a well-written and thought-provoking book that explores adolescent desire and the complexities of family relationships. The characters are well-developed, and the plot is engaging, making it a perfect read for anyone looking for a book that will make them think and feel.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book is funny is some parts, deeply disturbing in others and is all-around not something I'd read again.

Swanna is a 14-year-old girl whose parents are divorcing and she, along with her brother, Madding, are having a hard time with it.

She meets Dennis, a married father of 2, at a bowling alley and from there they start seeing each other. It's all a little twisted and isn't the kind of "relationship" I can read about and feel good about.

Overall, Swanna needs an adult in her life to look up to and that will nurture her. Maybe then she would have made smarter decisions. And don't even get me started on Dennis. Once he knew her age, that should've been it.

The fact that it wasn't is one of the reasons I can't recommend this book.

If you’ve read other books about minors having a relationship with someone middle-aged, you likely won’t find anything new here. It’s a serviceable novel that may have benefitted from more interesting characters or plot movements.

This was an interesting character study taking place in 1982 involving a 14 year old girl named Swanna. She is the product of an impending divorce, very protective of her younger brother Madding, and quite disdainful of her flighty mother. Swanna's mother is one of those separated women who when they find another guy put those kind of relationships/experiences over the well-being of her children. As a result Swanna drifts away from the sort of artist commune her mother is camping out in, and into the arms of a very attractive man more than twice her age. She lies about her age and initiates an intimate relationship with this married man with children. She is a very convincing and good liar. She is obviously affected by her parents' divorce, the lack of security in her mother's care, and her father moving on with another relationship as well. She can be very strong and cunning, but at the same time break down in sudden tears with shaking. The story moved along interestingly enough, but I found the ending abrupt and unresolved.

Thank you to the publisher Akashic Books, Ltd. for providing an advance reader copy via NetGalley.

I received an advance copy from #netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Jennifer Belle is finally back!!!! Her prior novel, The Seven Year Bitch, came out in 2010, so that’s almost 14 years. This one is classic Jennifer Belle, with her signature deadpan screwball humor. It’s about a 14-year-old girl’s sexual relationship with a 37-year-old man, which in today’s cultural climate might seem impossible to write about in a humorous way, but JB pulls it off. Headstrong 14-year-old Swanna is devastated by her parents’ neglect and impending divorce as she pursues a relationship with this married dad. As in Belle’s previous novels, the humor in Swanna in Love overlays a dark sadness, and only makes the sadness feel more real.