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.

I enjoyed this writing style in Hurricane Girl, simple and direct, with short sentences, and this one started out strong for me too, but ultimately fell flat. The opening scene, with the hot air balloon crashing into the swimming pool held a lot of promises, but I soon found myself tired of every single person in this book and it became a chore to finish it. You might enjoy this if you really love quirky slice-of-life novels, but if you're new to this author I'd recommend Hurricane Girl over this one.

Sometimes books show us that our lives aren’t as bad as they could be. Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for giving me that perspective along with an advance copy of this book!

Joannie hasn’t been on a date in years; particularly since her divorce, she’s focused all her attention on being a good mother to her young daughter, Lucy. But she agrees to a date with Johnny, the wealthy father of one of Lucy’s classmates. He turns it into a family affair: he invites Lucy to come with Joannie, so she can watch movies with his son.

Johnny is very charming. He has a wonderful home, seems like a great father, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s wealthy. The challenge is, after their first kiss, she realizes that she’s not attracted to him. Sigh.

But then things get a bit out of control. A hot-air balloon carrying a well-dressed couple crashes into Johnny’s pool. Joannie dives in to rescue them, only to realize they look familiar. The man is Jonathan, a very wealthy public figure—and Joanie’s first kiss back at summer camp.

Jonathan reserved the hot air balloon in an effort to woo back his wife, Julia, who has had enough of Jonathan’s public philandering. Their crash landing sets Johnny, Joannie, Julia, and Jonathan on a wild ride, where they’ll each have to figure out what—and whom—they want.

I absolutely loved Marcy Dermansky’s last book, Hurricane Girl. She has a knack for stream-of-consciousness storytelling that worked for this book. This is definitely a cross between satire and social commentary. It won’t be for everyone, but it was a fun read!

There’s just no disappointment quite like when a book you badly want to like just doesn’t do it for you.

Both the premise and the gorgeous cover got me excited about this short novel, but the best part of it was the hot air balloon crash, which was over after just a handful of pages.

After that, it’s an unfunny descent into the messy interactions of a small group of deeply unlikable people who are horribly lacking in self awareness. All of that might be fun or at least interesting, but the book’s lack of humor and dull central characters wiped out any appeal that the sharp and thoughtful writing offers.

It doesn’t help that the self-absorbed billionaire couple is actually less annoying than the characters who I suppose one is meant to root for. Even the kid is hard to take.

All of this really bums me out because I think Dermansky is a notably good writer and that the premise for this had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, the book just never goes where it needs to in order to feel satisfying.

Hot Air focuses on a cast of characters who meet under wild circumstances in the opening chapter when a billionaires couple (a la Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos) crash a hot air balloon into the swimming pool of an upper middle class neighborhood, interrupting the first date of a single Mom and her much more economically secure neighbor Dad. The oddity doesn't stop there, when it turns out that the Billionaire tech tycoon was actually the protagonist's first crush/first kiss from summer camp! The story gets wilder from there with a plot that touches on swinging, international adoption, obsession, power dynamics, income inequality, booze, sexs, and more!

This novel was a hoot and a half! I had the opportunity to read an ARC from NetGalley, and I was delighted by the humor, characters, multiple point of view narrative construction, and farcical nature of this story. While this is my introduction to Marcy Dermansky as an author - I will 100% be checking out her back catalogue to read her previous novels, because I adored her stream of conscious and character's inner monologue writing style and I'm curious to see if that's an approach she has used on more of her books. This would make for a great beach read or vacation book. It has deeper themes, but they are approached through humor - so you can chose to engage at whatever level you're in the mood for.

I was intrigued because the premise sounded great and I’ve seen some wonderful reviews. I was really drawn in by the opening scene. Unfortunately, after that it went downhill for me and I’m not the right reader for this one. By 65% I realized I was bored and didn’t care how it ended so decided to dnf. Thank you to the publisher for the free book to review.

If it takes me 16 days to read 208 pages... I didn't like it.

I think Hot Air is supposed to be a pandemic fever dream exploiting how we all felt after months hunkering down: saying "fuck it," to every wild choice presented, out of sheer boredom and crushing existentialism.

It could have been fun! Except all of these characters are flat, sad, and annoying. I couldn't care about any of them. Not to mention the whole "Johnny, Joannie, Julia and Jonathan" of it all, wasn't kitschy, it was confusing.

There are plenty of quirky novels about adults making "bad decisions" to indulge in, skip this one.

Oh my goodness! Hookups from the very first few pages. I didn't approve. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital ARC. Unfortunately, this book is not my cup of tea. I didn't understand the lifestyle and it was a very frivolous story. This review is my own opinion.

Read if you like:
- Quirky, funny, slice of life stories
- Kate Folk, Emily Austin, Jen Beagin
- Themes of wealth & privilege, motherhood, desire, & manipulation

Don’t read if you:
- Prefer characters that are easy to classify
- Prefer plot driven stories
- Don’t enjoy multiple POVs
- Are triggered by non-monogamy

I absolutely adored this delightful story that felt like the equivalent of watching a smart quirky sitcom like Curb Your Enthusiasm. This subgenre of litfic is my reading niche; complex and often unlikeable characters that are so layered and nuanced they are difficult to classify or define. In the words of Shrek, they’re “like onions.” If you’ve been following for a while you also know that I am a sucker for a story that explores serious topics in a lighthearted way and Dermansky managed to execute this with flawless precision. The various POVs and short chapters combined with the wacky premise and complex characters made this book unputdownable. I read this almost entirely in one sitting and I can’t recall the last time I did that (although I also can’t recall the last time I had a chance to read for several hours continuously.)

Every character in this story was using someone to some extent and for different purposes. This story made me chuckle but also prompted self reflection about topics including wealth and privilege, motherhood, adoption, philanthropy, and marriage.

This was somehow my first Dermansky but it will certainly not be my last. I already have Hurricane Girl queued up to read next. This was one of my favorite books I’ve read in this quarter and will likely be a contender for 2025 favorites. This was also one of my most anticipated releases of 2025 and it did not disappoint.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! This book was chaotic and had a lot going on, however, I found I couldn't put it down.

It's a fun quick read with interesting characters.
I would give is 3.5 rating.

After reading and enjoying Marcy Dermansky's Hurricane Girl and Very Nice, I was excited to pick up her latest. A very funny short novel filled with quirky characters, it starts when a couple on an anniversary hot air balloon ride crashes into a swimming pool at a home where another couple is on their first date. The narrative takes an unexpected turn and snowballs from there. The story is told in alternating perspectives from the 4 main characters. It was a quick read for me as I couldn't wait to find out what happens next. Gave me lots of food for thought, too!

"They are people," Julia said. "Not pets."
Hot Air is a strange book. I honestly feel a little gross after reading it, and I'm not sure that wasn't the author's intention. There were a few moments early on where I wondered if this book was written by a real person. It is very stream-of-consciousness, but also written in the third person, with the main characters holding strangely similar names of Joannie, Johnny, Jonathan, and Julia. There is a lot of rich people treating everyone else like possessions, including each other. None of the characters are likeable in the slightest. There are massive sexual overtones to every situation, especially ones where it is inappropriate. I did not enjoy reading this book. I imagine it may appeal to fans of surrealist literature because of the high level of absurdity from the hot air balloon landing to, well, everything else.
Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for this ARC.

Wow! Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky was a trip! What happens when two dates collide? Well, a lot of hot air, of course. Meet Joannie, Johnny, Jonathan, and Julia, four people all of a certain age, from very different walks of life. Add in two young children, a personal assistant, a bunch of cats, and a few rather larger egos - the result - you guessed it, a whole lot of mayhem.

Hot air begins on a warm May evening and wraps up a few days later. I love a book that takes place during a short span of time, and had fun reading this one. I did not, for the most part agree with many of the characters’ choices, but I enjoyed turning the pages to see what crazy thing would happen next. Sure enough, this book was full of laugh-out-loud and OMG moments for me.

Marcy Dermansky’s latest novel, Hot Air, written in sparse, concise prose, comes in at just over 200 pages, and can easily be read in 1-2 sittings. Dive in if you love a bizarre premise, rich people behaving badly, and even those who are not wealthy behaving badly, and think you can keep straight four characters who have names that start with J.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for an ARC of Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky in exchange for my honest review.