I was *this close* to loving this book. It started out so strong. I loved the two couples and the hot air balloon accident. I was just waiting to see what kind of shenanigans would occur. But then we sort of lose one of the characters (Johnny) and the focus goes to Joannie and her daughter and how the other couple (Julie and Jonathan) interact with them. I thought having the 4 of them leave the cocoon of Johnny’s house was a mistake. It popped the bubble of forced proximity and kind of deflated the plot.

I found that nothing was really happening and it was just three adults making arbitrary, selfish decisions.

I ended up being disappointed by this but I loved the writing style and will pick up something else by the author for sure.

From the names of the characters, Julia, Joanie, Johnny and Jonathan, the lackluster romance, and the dull dialog, this book longs for a strong editor. There is too much internal monologuing and not enough action to drive the story forward. Had the plot been advanced by the characters instead of it happening to them as we looked on, it may have been a more engaging tale.

The cover design looks like a puffer coat rather than a hot air balloon. It's a strange choice for a book full of people and authors making bad choices.

A quirky little novel, Hot Air is definitely not going to be for everyone. It follows a random group of people thrown together due to happenstance over a few days, with increasing decisions made outside of social norms. Read it if you like weird books.

"It was crazy." A lighting-fast read about a whirlwind weekend in which a cast of careless people are thrown together through a balloon crash. A ton of fun. Up there with Ian McEwan's Enduring Love on my list of greatest balloon-crash novels of all time.

The most bizarre plot development ever. Truly ludicrous. But I couldn’t put this strange little book down.

The characters were unforgettable in that I could not guess what ANY of them would do AT ALL. Not even Lucy, the adorable little girl who I thought would be the most stable and least surprising person in the book. But even she threw me at some point. The entire cast of characters was strange, messy and alarming. I didn't like or understand them, but they sure did hold my attention.

Story Concept 4/5
Quality of Writing 3/5
Pacing 3/5
Plot Development 3/5
Character Development 2/5
Overall Enjoyability 3/5

@aaknopf | #partner If you’ve read Marcy Dermansky before, you know her books are always just a little bit different. You can count on her to have unusual, sometimes shocking, but always unexpected elements embedded in her stories. 𝗛𝗢𝗧 𝗔𝗜𝗥 is no exception. The story opens, just as the pandemic is easing up, with a hot air balloon crashing into the backyard pool of Johnny. He happens to be entertaining Joannie and her daughter on a first date of sorts. Joannie jumps in the pool and rescues billionaire Jonathan, while his wife Julia looks on in disgust. (She managed to climb out of the basket before it fell in the pool.) ⁣
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From there Dermansky moves the story in even more surprising directions. Using alternating perspectives, the four adults consider each other, all wanting something that one of the others’ has OR that they imagine the others have. Whether gloriously wealthy or just getting by, they’re all on the take. What ensues is a long weekend of bad decisions, made for the wrong reasons, all in the hopes of gaining something more. None of the characters are particularly likable, but all are sympathetic, and no one can tell this kind of unhinged story quite like Dermansky. When you’re in the mood for a fun, fast-paced story that might leave your feeling just a tad voyeuristic, give 𝘏𝘰𝘵 𝘈𝘪𝘳 a try. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4.5 stars. An impulsive choice made at the last minute, and how often do those pan out? Literary fiction, 4 stars. Humor, 5 stars.

Joannie is an author trying to live off the increasingly scant checks garnered by her first--and last--novel. She's a single parent, and as she and the rest of the world come out of hiding following the pandemic, blinking like naked mole rats, she accepts a date, her first in seven years, from a man that lives around the corner. He has a child too! So it all starts out so innocently, so normally, and might have remained so, had the billionaires not crash landed their hot air balloon in Johnny's pool that evening.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Knopf for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

I generally avoid novels that feature major characters that are wealthy, but this one had its platinum tongue in its diamond-encrusted cheek so plainly that I decided to take a chance. Here’s what I love the best about it: instead of opening with a humorous passage or two that turn out to be about the only funny material the book has to offer—the sort that makes me suspicious that the author only brought out their A game for the first three chapters, the part that the publisher would see—Hot Air begins with a clever moment or two, and then it ramps up until the climax, at which point I am helpless with laughter. The pair in the balloon—Jonathan and Julia—are the most solipsistic individuals I’ve seen in print in some time, but they want to believe in their own goodness, and the inner conflict, what there is of it, between trying to be at least sort of decent, yet being determined, in the end, to put their own wishes first, is deftly handled. Joannie, on the other hand, is from the real world, and she’s trying to find just a scintilla of personal happiness without screwing things up and making her little girl pay the price. We bounce between their points of view, including the home owner’s, of course, with occasional references made to Jonathan’s personal assistant, Vivian, a young Vietnamese woman tasked with cleaning up all of his messes. Here’s a sample from the very beginning, so I’m not spoiling anything:

“He took a photo of the hot air balloon at the bottom of the pool and sent it to Vivian in a text message. ‘Here’s a challenge for you,’ he wrote. She could take care of it. She was the one who had actually rented the balloon, after all, set up the lessons. It occurred to him that this was her fault. She should have told him it was a bad idea.”

We’re well into the second half of this novel when we hear Vivian’s point of view, and it is a miracle that I am able to avoid spraying my sandwich across the table, it’s so surprising and so funny!

At 208 pages, this little novel flies by, aided by the abundant, punchy dialogue. I haven’t had such a happy surprise in ages; now you can, too! Anyone might enjoy this story, but I especially recommend it to women. If you need some comic relief, get this book! You won’t be sorry.

This book was a wild and offbeat ride that feels like a fever dream in the best way. The characters are reckless, impulsive, and fun to watch as they chase freedom and disaster. It’s sharp, weird, and addictive, with moments that made me laugh. I love messy people, especially messy rich people, who make messy choices. This one’s a blast, no pun intended! 😉

<i>What about us? she wanted to ask him, despite the fact that she did not want an "us." But she would have loved to live in this house. There was that.</i>

It took some convincing for Johnny to get Joanie to agree to a date. She finally agreed to have dinner with him, while their children watched movies in his basement rec room. Partway through the date, when Joanie is realizing she's not at all attracted to Johnny, but she is very attracted to his house, a hot air balloon crashes into the backyard pool. Things rapidly become weirder and soon Joanie and her daughter are being taken to the home of a famous billionaire, after a night of wild behavior on the part of everyone except Joanie.

<i>She would not have sympathy for a rich man's regret about how he spent his money.</i>

Marcy Dermansky has written several books now about women following their whims and blowing up their own lives. This novel marks a change, where Joanie tries to figure out what is best for her daughter and herself, but also she's tired of being a single parent, of getting out of a bad marriage only to have to scramble to keep her and her daughter in a small apartment that doesn't allow pets. Joanie's doing her best, and she's tired, so when the billionaires look to her and her daughter for a diversion, she's ready to let them take care of her, although she realizes that none of this is under her control.

Dermansky knows how to craft a series of escalating scenes and somehow make them feel possible. Here, she starts with an unbelievable situation -- not that a billionaire would be able to force responsible professionals to loan him a hot air balloon he has no business operating -- but that it would land safely in a small swimming pool instead of crashing on a highway or becoming tangled in power lines, and made me shrug and just go with where she was taking this madcap story. This book is both fun and pointed, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

The moment the hot air balloon fell from the sky into a private pool, I knew this book was going to be a fun ride. I was not disappointed. Flawed and selfish characters take center stage in this book. The only thing more ridiculous than the characters is the situations they find themselves in and create for themselves. I thoroughly enjoyed all the craziness, imperfection and ultimate dysfunction. People are flawed and I like the way this story exploited that fact. Thank you NetGalley for providing the ARC.

Marcy Dermansky's "Hot Air" is, unsurprisingly, another installment of dark humor and sharp observation. With her signature style, she crafts a novel populated by gloriously imperfect characters who behave badly with stunning authenticity. The prose is razor-sharp, each sentence packed with the wit that I have come to expect from her.

Dermansky's characters are simultaneously repellent and magnetic—the kind of people you can't look away from. Her keen eye for human complexity transforms what could be simple dysfunction into a nuanced exploration of desire, weakness, and unexpected humanity.
A brilliant, uncomfortable, and wickedly funny read that proves once again why Dermansky is a master of contemporary fiction.

This book is full of unlikeable characters, has a bit of a bizarre premise that takes place over a few days, and I loved it. Dermansky's writing is sharp and funny and I could not put this down. It starts with Joanie, a divorced mother, on her first date in years with Johnny, a fellow parent. They are in his backyard when a hot air balloon crash lands near his pool. The balloon is carrying Julia and her husband Jonathan, a billionaire who also happens to be Joanie's first kiss ever. That is all the setup you need! If you can keep all the J names straight you are in for a super fun, highly entertaining read. Also one of my favorite covers. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced digital copy. 4.25 stars

The cover was appealing to me but I found this book strange. Not my typical read.

Thank you to netgally for an advanced copy. My opinions are my own.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for the chance to read an early copy of this book!

I flew through this book and almost read it in one sitting. I had read Dermansky’s previous novel, Very Nice, and this book has a similar tone and quirky writing style.

I would describe it as a literary comedy of errors, full of self-involved characters and rich people behaving badly. At times, these characters almost felt like caricatures, but they have very real fears and thoughts (if a bit absurd at times).

A very enjoyable romp of a read, though not one I might necessarily come back to!

3.5 stars rounded up

“How were you supposed to behave after a hot air balloon crashed into a swimming pool on your first date in many years?”

Different and interesting are the words are top of mind after finishing Hot Air, my first read from Marcy Dermansky.

In this story, a billionaire and his wife are on a hot air balloon ride and crash into the backyard of a man who’s currently hosting a date. The story primarily follows the 4 adult characters, revealing their thoughts about each other and about money. The characters weren’t always likable — actually they were unlikable more often than not, but the story, focused on lust and wealth in its various forms, was entertaining. Hot Air was unique and kept me intrigued.

A hot air balloon crashes in your backyard during a first date.

Sounds like a free-writing prompt, right? That’s what I love about Marcy Dermansky’s writing: Her stories feel like someone tossed her a one-line writing prompt and she said, “Hold my beer,” and then wrote a whole book around that prompt made of a single line. Like an improvised, but genius novel, and she just keeps doing it.

As always, the focus of Hot Air is on the characters, and there is brilliant work done here with these messy, mostly-white (which is somewhat acknowledged) people. They vary in gender, employment, housing, stages of life, and economical means. One way in which none of them vary? They’re all completely self-involved, some to the point of cruel and criminal behavior. There’s only one truly redeemable person in the whole book, and she happens to be under the age of ten.

Why would I enjoy a book about a bunch of unlikeable, messy people? Because I enjoy reading about bad people making bad decisions and having to think about all the bad things they’ve done and feel guilty about it for a little while. Is it going to change who they are or how they do things long term? No, because it doesn’t even do that in real life. People don’t change. They talk big, but they act little. Hence the title of this book: It’s all hot air. 4⭐️


I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Dark Comedy/Literary Fiction

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of the eARC!

I finished this in a day- what a fun, wacky read that I just couldn't put down! I have enjoyed the author's previous works and writing style since reading, "Very Nice." Honestly, I didn't know what to expect but thought the story gave an interesting glimpse into the power dynamics in various relationships (husband/wife, mother/daughter, boss/employee) through a bizarre premise and incredibly unlikable characters. I look forward to reading more from the author.

What a fun ride! Joannie's a divorced single mother on her first date with Johnny, when a hot air balloon containing a tech billionaire and his wife crash into their lives. Enter Jonathan and Julia.
The story is told in alternating chapters by each of the main characters, with occasional input from Jonathan's assistant, Vivian, and Joannie's daughter, Lucy. They're all at times annoying, charming, and are living messy and chaotic lives.
There's a lot of lust in this book - some satisfied, a lot unspoken and unrequited - as the main characters all try to figure out what (and who) they want from their lives. An interesting aspect of the book was the timing of its setting. It takes place in 2021, as the pandemic is winding down, but the characters are still adapting to changes in its aftermath.
Hot Air was an entertaining, quick and easy read and I didn't want it to end! I want to know what's next in the lives of these interesting characters.
Thanks to Netgalley and Alfred A. Knopf for the opportunity to read Hot Air. I received a complimentary copy of the book and opinions expressed are completely my own.

Imagine a one-hit wonder female author/divorcee/mother of one, goes on a first date with a man she doesn't particularly have any interest in. The date is happening at his house, their kids in the basement having a play date, when all of a sudden a hot air balloon crashes in the the man's pool. The couple in the hot air balloon gets out of the pool, unscathed. They are billionaires. A supposedly uneventful evening turning into craziness!!!! I devoured this book with its unhinged characters, their shameful thoughts, the roller-coaster ride (no pun intended) they are going to take us in for the 72hrs this book covers. The multiple POVs make this book even more fun. It's kind of relatable, and we get in on the shamefulness of judging those characters when we come across this one thought and we realize that we have been in this situation too!
A super fun and fast-past read that I will definitely recommend!

I'm hovering somewhere around a 3 to 3.5 for this one. I have read one title by Dermansky before (Hurricane Girl) and overall love her style of writing.
In Hot Air, the characters were entertainingly unlikable and confusing but this one fell short for me. In this advanced copy, it seems there were too many J names to keep straight because there were several errors in characters written.
There was some fun exploration about stepping into someone else's life and the usual Marcy Dermansky witty quirk. The ending was fantastic.