What a quirky and fun book. Loved every second of it.

I read the whole thing in one day. Which I don’t do often. I will definitely be looking for more of this authors books.

Thank you

Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky is everything I didn’t know I needed. It’s witty, raw, and so brilliantly written that I couldn’t put it down. Dermansky has this incredible way of making you feel like you’re inside the heads of Johnny, Joannie, Julia, and Jonathan, living their messy, chaotic, beautiful lives right along with them. She even puts you inside the heads of Vivian and Lucy, two of the minor characters.
The humor and emotions? On point. It’s one of those books that makes you laugh out loud one second and then realize how terrible the characters the next. The writing style feels effortless, yet it’s packed with depth. Dermansky cleverly captures the complexities of life, relationships, and the weird world we live in.
If you’re into stories with flawed, weird, unlikable characters and razor-sharp storytelling, Hot Air is a must-read. Five glowing stars! 🌟
Thank you to Knopf and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I’m sorry, what did I just read? The cover and the synopsis made me request this from NetGalley, and the short length was a plus, but unfortunately this was not for me.

First off, the characters all having J names was super confusing - both the males were Jonathan and Johnny. None of them were likable, and honestly they were annoying. The decisions made were…a bit much for me.

This one is certainly quirky, and I’m sure some people will love all the eccentricities, but I wouldn’t personally recommend this.

Thank you nonetheless to NetGalley and Knopf for the eARC!

I really enjoyed this novel. Moved fast. Characters behaving badly. It’s a fun ride and these people are a mess.

I absolutely love Marcy Dermansky’s work, but this didn’t hit quite like some of her others did for me (Hurricane Girl, Very Nice, Bad Marie. Huh, she really likes 2 word titles, doesn’t she?).

The wild premise hooked me, and it wasn’t as hard as I expected to distinguish between our 4 J-named characters. Dermansky is talented at unhinged novels where you never know what’s going to happen next. She constantly raises the stakes. I don’t think she did that as much in this novel. It’s fast paced and a quick read, but nothing was THAT shocking, the stakes never felt that high for these horrible rich people. And then it just…ended. I felt like there was so much more that could have been explored! Particularly with Vivian, Joannie’s writing career, and more. Weird. I think I was still rooting for Joannie despite her self-pitying vibes and obsession with the rich and status. I was glad when she seemed to be ready to try to turn things around at the end.

Overall, an enjoyable read! I was entertained throughout.

Nobody I can think of can write such absolutely despicable characters and make me want to spend hours in their heads like Marcy Dermansky. And her hour may yet be approaching.


I have to confess, though, that she's kind of a low-dose author for me. I enjoyed the hell out of her debut novel, Bad Marie, many years ago, but it left me feeling just icky enough not to want especially to indulge in that very specific kind of pleasure again for a long time. Which is to say that I haven't read any of Dermansky's work since Bad Marie. And her newest, Hot Air, hasn't changed my view of her work one bit -- even though I really liked it.

Dermansky's subject is, at bottom, class envy, and it's a subject about which she is wickedly funny. The titular character of her first novel is a delightfully trashy person with whom to spend a few hours, watching her unhinged schemes go awry as she goes on a one-woman/one-child crime spree. Well, more of a misdeeds spree, although she happens to commit a few petty and one decidedly un-petty in the process. She has been badly used by her upscale friend who made the mistake of hiring her as a nanny, and feels perfectly justified, she tells us over hundreds of pages, in committing whatever malefaction she likes against that friend. We are happy to be persuaded, over and over again, even if she never really convinces us.

For Hot Air Dermansky has expanded the perspective she gives us to that of several characters, though pretty tightly focused on her signature distressed bourgeois heroine, Joannie. Joannie is somewhat recently divorced and rents an unsatisfactory-to-her apartment* in a neighborhood dominated by what sounds like a lot of McMansions. She has a daughter, Lucie, a tween who is well on her way toward becoming even less tolerable than her mommy is and for whom Joannie is about to set a whole lot of bad examples in one disastrous weekend-and-change.

Joannie lives next door to Johnny, a decent looking divorced guy with a son, Tyson, who is Lucie's approximate age. Johnny owns a very nice house with a very nice swimming pool, more or less next door to Joannie's apartment complex. Johnny is so nicely set up that he even gets along well enough with his ex-wife to have her living in the very nice house across the street from him, so he even has an easy time sharing custody of Tyson. Are you humming the Brady Bunch theme right now? I was. And so are Joannie and Johnny, as we quickly learn when the novel opens with Joannie on a pseudo-date with Johnny. To save on childcare expenses, Joannie has manipulated Johnny into having the date over at his house, with Tyson and Lucie banished to the basement with their various screen-equipped devices. So far, so good.

Except, as Joannie informs us pretty much right away, she is not feeling like their boy-girl Lego is ever going to click (I love that phrase, which I stole from William Gibson, because of course I did), and while it's mostly because their names will sound dumb together, Joannie and Johnny, it's also because she's just not feeling it with him, especially after he rather inexpertly kisses her. And kisses her. Oh noes! She forgot to make arrangements with someone to send a fake emergency text to get her out of this!

Fortunately, the plot happens. In the form of a hot air balloon that a rich, brash techbro type rented to celebrate his wedding anniversary after only having had a few lessons. As in not enough lessons to responsibly be allowed to pilot a balloon unsupervised, but when has that ever stopped a rich and famous and handsome billionaire?

As you already would know from a glance at the jacket copy, the billionaire's balloon comes crashing into Johnny's swimming pool and hijinks and sexcapades and a whole bunch of other bad decisions ensue. We're barely acquainted well enough to dislike Joannie and Johnny and here's Marcy Dermansky, serving us up an even more annoyingly privileged couple to dislike even more. One can never accuse Dermansky of being stingy with us; Jonathan (yes, there is a Johnny and a Jonathan in this awkward little bottle-book) and Julia have fallen out of love with each other, believe the world has done them dirty despite being billionaires, feel entitled to absolutely everything including Jonathan's personal assistant, Vivian (whom Julia wants to adopt as their own Vietnamese orphan despite Vivian being an adult with perfectly good parents of her own, and Jonathan just wants to bone, basically) and, once they get a load of Joannie and Lucie, to Lucie. They stop short of offering to buy Lucie, but only just.

BUT, lest we start feeling much in the way of sympathy or empathy for Joannie, who has barely gotten over her sick envy of Johnny's swimming pool and ridiculously over-equipped kitchen before being given people to really envy (and it turns out Jonathan just happens to have been Joannie's first kiss, at a summer camp when they were kids, who then ghosted her the day after Joannie's first kiss), she kind of seems like she'd maybe be down for selling Lucie, or at least renting her out for a little while? In exchange for a chance to share, just a little bit, in Johnny and Julia's fabulous lifestyle? But no, that would probably be too icky.

We have only this slight and kind of token assurance that Joannie has a firm line on what is and is not too icky, by the way. Because there are so many other icky things that she doesn't really even need to be pushed into doing. So many. So icky. But at least she is somewhat redeemed, as Bad Marie was in her novel, by her deep and true love for her little girl. Even though the little girl is a whiny brat.**

And all we can do is point and laugh and wait for consequences. Which, since this is fiction and not the actual world, do happen somewhat, at some points. See why I'm saying Dermansky's big moment may only just now be arriving? Despite what looks like has been a pretty decent literary career?

Just, you know, life sure do like to imitate art, don't it?

Anyway, I'll read some more of her back catalog someday, probably. If nothing else, it might soon be my only safe outlet.

*That, I dunno, sounds pretty nice to me, but I guess I must grudgingly admit that after living a nice, somewhat prosperous married life in a nice house, it's the kind of come-down that would sting some. Still, if we want to talk about class envy, this woman is living in a nice and safe area with good access to schools and shopping and is able to support herself and her daughter in pretty decent style off a literary career. Um. Where's my micro-violin?

**Really, the only character with even a pretense of likeability is Johnny's son, Tyson, but he doesn't get a lot of ink and would probably show obnoxious true colors if he got much more. Dermansky isn't about winning you over with loveable characters, you guys.

This was the first book that I've ever read by Marcy Dermansky and I'm not sure that I'd pick up any others. This story was just plain weird. I think it was supposed to be a commentary about the wealthy and how they're so disconnected from reality, but it felt really weird and "off" to me. I did like the alternating points of view between the 4-5 main characters which kept the story progressing fast. But I thought that these people were all terrible - the little girl and her mom, her mom's date, and the rich couple who fell from their hot air balloon into the pool. All of them were just terrible humans. I couldn't root for any of them and that's probably why I didn't feel connected to this story at all.

Marcy Dermansky’s *Hot Air* is a sharp, captivating novel that effortlessly balances dark humor with emotional depth. Her prose is clean and concise, pulling you into the story with an almost hypnotic rhythm. The characters feel raw and authentic, flawed in ways that make them deeply human.

The novel shines in its exploration of relationships and the unspoken tensions that exist between people. Dermansky's talent for depicting inner turmoil is on full display here, and her observations about life, love, and the sometimes suffocating pressures of modern existence hit close to home.

However, at times, the plot felt slightly meandering, and a few narrative threads didn’t tie together as cohesively as I’d hoped. Still, the emotional resonance and compelling characters more than make up for these minor shortcomings.

*Hot Air* is an engaging read, perfect for fans of literary fiction who appreciate wit, vulnerability, and a touch of darkness. Dermansky has delivered another gem, proving once again why she’s a master of contemporary storytelling.

I snagged this largely because this cover is so striking. This book is described as "joyfully unhinged" and that feels right. It actually felt very similar to The Most - novella-length, no plot, all unlikeable character vibes, and even the themes of marriage in trouble, money, sex, and revenge are repeated - but The Most was just better written in my opinion. I think reading these so close together didn't do this any favors because it didn't feel as fresh.

Listen, my expectations for Dermansky are high! She’s one of my absolute favorite writers-inventive, witty, surprising. I was so excited for a new novel from her! My one gripe is her books are usually too short. This one didn’t help. Clocking in just over 200 pages, it felt more like a novella. I thought we could have explored so much more here! The bones of the story were good even if all of the characters were pretty unlikable, but it felt rushed, and a little bit more surface-level than I’d like, and therefore I feel a bit duped. 2.5 stars rounded down, partly because I had such high hopes, and partly because I feel we could have been given so much more to chew on had ideas and the story been expanded. The cover though, is fantastic, I have no qualms about already declaring it one of my favorite covers of 2025; I just wish the novel inside was at least 100 pages longer.

this was such a quick and fun read. i can be pretty hit or miss when it comes to multiple POVs but i think it really added to this cast of characters.

Joannie, Julia, Johnny, and Jonathan are brought together after an absurd hot air balloon crash and everything that follows is messy, funny, frustrating, and makes this characters feel all the more real because of their flaws.

i had a fun time reading this but think i would have loved it even more had it been more unhinged.

I went into Hot Air with high expectations, as Marcy Dermansky has a knack for creating sharp, offbeat stories, but this one fell somewhere in the middle for me—solid yet not particularly memorable. It’s a quick, engaging read with moments of wit and quirkiness, but it lacked the emotional depth or narrative punch I was hoping for.

That said, Hot Air is not without its charm. It’s the kind of book you can breeze through effortlessly, and Dermansky’s clever observations keep you turning the pages. While it didn’t quite hit the mark for me, I can see how readers looking for a breezy, character-driven escape could find it enjoyable. A solid 3.5 stars for an entertaining, albeit middling, read.

Joannie’s life takes a strange turn when her childhood crush, now a famous billionaire, literally crash-lands back into her world. The setup is undeniably whimsical, and the author’s commitment to the absurd premise lends the novel its most delightful moments. Scenes involving Jonathan’s hot-air balloon catastrophe and the resulting weekend of dysfunction—complete with tangled relationships and shifting desires—are entertaining, even if they occasionally veer toward over-the-top melodrama.

The cast of characters is eclectic and unpredictable, but their relationships and intentions are so intertwined that investing deeply in any of them becomes difficult. Joannie’s dilemma—caught between Johnny, the awkward but kind lousy kisser, and Jonathan, the larger-than-life billionaire—is engaging at first. Still, it lacks the emotional depth to resonate fully.

The novel skewers wealth, privilege, and desire with a biting wit, offering moments of sharp commentary on the absurdities of modern life. However, the humor is hit or miss; while some lines land perfectly, others feel forced or too self-aware.

Overall, Hot Air is a light, playful read that embraces its chaos, even if it doesn’t always channel it into something cohesive.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Pub date March 17 2025

Have you read Hurricane Girl by Marcy Dermansky? If you have and you liked it, then you’ll also like this. I can’t speak for her other novels. If you haven’t read Hurricane Girl, then may I ask if you like weird unsettling plots with even weirder and more unsettling characters? If so…

The set up for this is so good. Struggling author Joannie is on a date with a rich guy named Johnny, who she’s not really into, when a hot air balloon crashes into his pool. This hot air balloon is carrying billionaires Johnathon and Julia. Joanie, Johnny, Johnathon, Julia, and a hot air balloon. It sounds like it’s plucked from a Dr. Seuss book. And this all happens in the first two or three pages, by the way. It’s ridiculous in the best way and just becomes more so. I think this one, like Hurricane Girl, is a great buddy read or book club pick. I’m absolutely going to read more of her backlist titles.

Wealth, love, desire, and revenge. All highly unlikable characters. Short sentences. Short chapters. Multiple pov’s. Post-pandemic.

Have you read anything else by her? What did you think?

Thank you to @netgalley and @knopf for the gifted e-ARC.

Totally unexpected…. Crazy storyline and a bit unhinged. Way too many J names. None of the characters are likable except poor Tyson. Quick short story about a crazy first date that escalated into a bizarre trip to Universal Studios. I expected the story to go different directions at a few points.

What a quirky little read. Four characters, all with almost the same name, end up sharing space because of a hot air balloon accident. Feelings and interests are explored. Some dark, some amusing, some complex. I’m not sure I loved it, but it definitely kept my interest. If you like esoteric storylines, awkward situations, and flawed characters, in an easy to read package, this might be up your alley.

Read as an arc from the publisher. Thank you, NetGalley and Knopf.

Joannie, Johnny, Jonathan, and Julia come crashing together (literally) in this fast-paced romp of a story. Told through six different perspectives (the four J's plus Joannie's daughter - Lucy - and Jonathan's assistant - Vivian), the structure keeps things moving. I blew through the book in a day!

The story kicks off with a hot-air balloon crash, followed by some revenge partner-swapping sex to explore themes of marriage and motherhood. Next, some characters display their savior complexes. Lastly, throw in a trip to Orlando, FL' and have the characters all gratefully crash-landing back in their own lives. There are moments of blistering self-awareness, twist-in-your-seat awkwardness, and just plain ridiculousness and I, for one, couldn't look away. The ending is satisfying (I love me a positive ending!) even as I never cheered for any of these pretty awful characters. It was just FUN.

I needed a thoughtful and still-literary, but fast and fun read to break me out of a slump and "Hot Air" delivered!

this book was entertaining. Somehow the characters were all soooooo so so annoying and made the worst choices and decisions they could. I hated all of them. Yet somehow, the book was not terrible, it was still enjoyable. I like some of the things about covid/pandemic times and how it was relatable.

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

This book felt as surreal as the pandemic did. I'm reflecting on it, and like the pandemic, I find myself asking, "wait, what?!" Every character, even the children, are detestable. Their choices are wild and unexplainable. Yet somehow, I didn't hate this book? I just felt like I was in a strange dream that didn't quite make sense but was still overall pretty entertaining.

If you like schadenfreude, you’ll like this book. All the characters are a little bit unlikeable but also sympathetic. Their downfalls were kind of delicious.