I have never, ever seen a book description so made for me IN MY LIFE! And the cover—SO GOOD…

Twin siblings battle not just in life, but in love with one another, mixed in with a dark past and art! Say less—take all my money!

I flew to pick this up! I was so giddy… but sadly, that was short-lived.

This was not at all what I got. Instead, I got an odd sibling relationship that almost always didn’t make sense, plot and dialogue that mostly went nowhere, and overall just a bizarre story that didn’t come together.

It had all the ingredients to be something great, but it just doesn’t get there.

3.75 stars

This captivating novel is about two siblings, Demetri and Ava, who have a haunting and dark past that lends the book its eerie atmosphere. Even in their adult lives, it continues to haunt them and influences their art, keeping them co-dependent on each other, making it difficult to discern if this relationship is a gift or a curse. Their bond becomes even more complicated with the arrival of a person who becomes an obsession for both.

The book starts off strong and thought-provoking, encouraging readers to understand and be patient with the siblings. Praise to the author for successfully telling the stories of these two siblings, who navigate their dark past and adult lives, and the lengths one might go for their art.

This book is a slice of live style characterization of the relation between Ava and her brother Dimitri with no real plot. She is an artist and he is kind of her muse, she depends on him, their mother died and their father is distant and doesn’t really care for his children (even the younger daughter could use some guidance)

I don’t get this book, it just isn’t for me. I really struggle with the slice of life style and I can’t relate to either of the characters. The character of Ava feels like she is written to shock and be art at the same time which feels novel but also a bit over the top, I’ m really missing a story arc here.

It’s probably a good book to dissect the relationship between the siblings and have room for interpretations of the meaning, but in my opinion it’s not a book to read for entertainment.
But the cover is very pretty! Kudos to the artist!

Coming out on February 25th is Sophie Madeleine Dess’s debut novel What You Make of Me, and to be honest, it is hard to know what to make of it, which is sort of the point. It is a story about two eccentric siblings, Ava and Demetri, living eccentric lives in one of the most eccentric places on the planet, New York City. Both of them are trying to make ends meet, Ava as a painter and Demetri as a filmmaker, but are finding it quite difficult to do so, so they lean onto each other to get by. With that said, they are so codependent, the relationship becomes extremely toxic just prior to Demetri learning he has terminal cancer: Ava becomes infatuated, and ends up having an affair, with Demetri’s lover, who is equally as screwed up as Ava and Demetri. This “love” triangle is not the central focus of Dess’s new work, however. As Dess says on her website: “What You Make of Me has, at its center, a brother and sister.” Thus, the work is about the unusual nature of family dynamics, especially between brothers and sisters that are mirror images of each other.

Read the rest of my review on Cobleskill Commentaries: https://greatbutunknownperformances.wordpress.com/

this ARC was provided by Random House via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review:

the synopsis lied to me :( this was bizarre. nothing happened to the siblings in their youth that they had to heal from, they were just weird. the sister continued to be weird and mean while her brother died, i didn’t understand their rivalry at all. they could’ve easily been friends. not the descriptions of art and the art scene that i wanted. i just didn’t like it right away, but at least it was short. from the description this sounded like it could be like sirens & muses by antonia angress, but it was really just a rambling, inner monologue of a character who competed with her brother and painted weird paintings

I genuinely didn't understand this - I think it was too smart for me. The sibling relationship was confusing to me and I felt like not much was going on. There was something there but I was repeatedly missing it. I feel like my opinion is going to be on the unpopular side after this comes out.

Thank you to Penguin Press and NetGalley for the ARC.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Press for the ebook. Ava has been pushed her whole life into becoming a painter by her brother, Demetri, a documentary filmmaker whose films Ava refuses to watch because they might be about her. The two live in separate apartments in NYC, but seem to share one mind and are now even sharing Nati, an Italian gallery owner, even though Ava won’t confess to Demetri that she is seeing her behind his back. Things become impossible for Ava as her brother is now dying and she goes over and over their lives to try and figure out who they really are.