3.5 ⭐️

Honestly shoutout to authors who can write almost entirely character driven books full of just the most unlikeable people. This book gave a lot of depth to its small cast of characters, even the 8 year old little girl, who is also endearing but unlikeable. The commentary on marriage, children, and jobs is so real. Adulting fucking sucks.

A mom who will truly do anything for a swim in a pool!

For fans of people behaving badly and making poor choices, and for fans of succession. What a romp!

hot Air was a wild ride! at first, the characters all having J names bothered me, but I settled in quickly. I loved the short chapters and recommend the audio. I liked the questions about marriage, monogamy, motherhood.

Marcy Dermansky never fails to keep me glued to the page with her books and 'Hot Air' was no different. Joannie is on a first date with Johnny at his home while their elementary school age children have a play date in the basement. And then a hot air balloon comes out of nowhere and crashes into Johnny's pool and throws the entire night and weekend into a chaotic mess. I love how Dermansky's characters act exactly how you think they should while also doing things that you would never think to do in real life. Jonathan and Julia not only crash into the pool but they crash the entire situation. Jonathan is Joannie's first kiss from summer camp twenty years ago, coincidentally. Is there still a connection? Does Julia actually love her husband, Jonathan, or does she just adore his money? And does anyone like Johnny at all? This was a fast read but so entertaining. I would definitely recommend 'Hot Air' to someone looking for a different summer read.

Many thanks to Netgalley for e-arc!

This was an interesting book and I'm definitely planning on reading this author's backlog. I really enjoyed the deep dive into these characters and the unusual situation they all find themselves in.

A hilarious splash of a novel about the lives of the haves and the have-nots that begins with a literal splash as a hot air balloon being piloted by a billionaire and his wife is blow off course and crashes into a pool. The pool’s owned by Johhny, a single Dad who’s invited his impoverished divorced neighbor Joanie over for a first date, while their eight-year old kids Tyson and Joanie watch a Harry Potter movie in his basement entertainment room.

When the balloon crashes, Joanie rushes to the pool and dives under the balloon to save Johnathon Foster, a famous tech CEO. The billionaires land right in the middle of a bitter marital dispute with Jonathon’s wife Julia screaming that she will kill him if they don’t die. Johnny, sensing the momentousness of the occasion, opens expensive wine to celebrate and everyone decides to stay for a sleepover given the lateness of the hour. And then the zaniness begins, with twists popping up as everyone’s internal perspective of events gets shared.

The narration switches points of view each chapter between all the adults as well as Joanie’s daughter Lucy and Jonathon’s unhappy personal assistant Vivian. All their parents have their own selfish perspectives, riddled with needs, narcissism, bitterness, thwarted ambition and a touch of cruelty. Sprinkled on top are closely held secrets. Based on cascading bad decisions, they all end up in the deep end, just like the wayward balloon.
Meanwhile, Vivian works to muster the courage to breakout of her servant-assistant role, and Lucy turns her craving of going to Florida’s Harry Potter Land into a larger angst about being the have-not child of divorce.

The books zaniness, unbelievable coincidences, and humor lift the story beyond the really bad behavior of the grown-ups and saves you from questioning whether humanity itself is worth salvaging.

Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

This was a breath of fresh air—a true delight. Marcy Dermansky’s weird, funny, straightforward way of writing captivated me from the very first page, and I was barely able to put it down.

What could have been (and admittedly was, at times) an absolutely absurd story, was relatable and honest and every good thing you want out of a book. I loved it.

Hot Air is a riot: quirky, sharp, and completely unhinged in the best way. I loved how Marcy Dermansky explores lust, power, and absurd wealth through a cast of messy, hilarious characters. The premise of a billionaire crash-landing a hot-air balloon into a first date sets the tone for the wild ride that follows. The post-pandemic setting worked well for me. It was present without being heavy-handed and added depth to the story. Fast-paced, entertaining, and sneakily smart, this book was a total delight.

Hot Air is described by the publisher as “a joyfully unhinged story of money, marriage, sex and revenge”, and I can’t possibly think of a better elevator pitch for this one. It’s a fast-paced story about messy characters doing messy things, with themes of relationships, power, parenthood and ego weaved through it. If you’re in the mood for something quirky, absurd and downright ridiculous that is still able to communicate important messages, Hot Air might be for you!

The story takes off when billionaire Jonathan and his philanthropist wife Julia crash their hot air balloon into a backyard pool. That pool just happens to belong to Johnny, a man who is doing his best to woo Joannie and her daughter on a first date of sorts. From there, things take off in surprising and unexpected directions, from swinger culture to Universal Studios in Florida. Told in alternating points of view of all four main characters, we get to watch all of the bad decisions that they all make for all of the wrong reasons, all in hopes of gaining something more.

It’s such a fun ride that had me laughing and cringing, sometimes at the same time. There’s just something about Dermansky’s writing style that you can’t look away from, and I enjoyed it here just as much as I did in Hurricane Girl. It’s fast-paced and staccato-like, continually forcing you to just turn to the next page. The characters in this one are all shallow and unlikeable, with motivations that are selfish and messy, but somehow they’re also sympathetic at the same time and you can’t help but want everything to turn out alright in the end. I fully anticipated that four main characters whose names all start with J would leave me completely confused, but it didn’t bother me in the slightest, since each character was so uniquely themselves. If I had any criticisms here, it would be that I just wanted a little more of everything.

Hot Air would be perfect for a one-sitting summer read when you’re ready to dive into the lives of some chaotic, flawed characters that manage to enlighten us to so many of the complexities of this weird, eccentric world that we live in. Thank you so much to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I’m not sure what to say about Hot Air- it was a whirlwind of a book!

It had a few things I enjoyed- alternating POV, rich people behaving badly, and it was short. But that was about it.

Honestly, it needed some better character development. The whole book felt kinda pointless to me? Everyone was terrible and I didn’t understand what motivated any of them to do what they did. Also- why give everyone such similar names? It definitely made it tricky to follow.

I wouldn’t recommend this one.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

"Hot Air" began with a totally original (and slapstick silly) premise. It opens with a first date backyard dinner around a refreshing and inviting backyard pool. While contemplating where this date is heading, the man (with one young son) and the woman (with her own similarly aged daughter) share a first and decidedly unsatisfactory first kiss. Bummer. 😣

What happens next is in turns bizarre, dangerous, preposterous, and very funny... well, only in hindsight folks was it funny! ANOTHER couple (on a *save our marriage* 10th year anniversary date night), lose control of the HOT AIR BALLOON that they are traveling within and crash land into the aforementioned beautiful backyard pool!😬

Let the fun begin‼️

What ensues is the strangest "second chance" story I have ever read. Relationships are tested. Love is debated. Perspectives are shared and challenged, sometimes all at the same time! Yikes!

While this was an engaging, funny, ironic story of *adulting* gone awry, it was flawed, for this reader, when all characters (adult AND children) were mostly, if not totally, unlikeable.
Yup. Just dreadful people.

Perhaps other readers, as did I, will eventually decide, "Well, shoot. I'm good with the sheer slapstick-ish farce of this story. I want to see where this balloon ride takes me." But I honestly found it difficult to empathize with the very real emotions underlying the characters and their subsequent actions or reactions toward one another.

My thanks to NetGalley for offering this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky is a wild, messy, can’t-look-away kind of book. It’s funny, sharp, and packed with characters who are chaotic, flawed, and somehow totally addictive to read about.

The writing is effortless but deep, switching between different POVs in a way that keeps things moving fast. One second, you’re laughing—next, you’re realizing just how terrible (yet real) these people are. And that hot air balloon crash? Yeah, it sets off a whole rollercoaster.

If you like stories about weird, reckless characters making bad decisions in the most entertaining way possible, this one’s for you.

Thank you NetGalley for early access to this book!
Rating: 3.5⭐️

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! 😉