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.

I’m in awe of Marcy Dermansky’s writing style. I don’t, however, know that I love it. It’s razor-sharp and clever, but it’s also halting and a little off-putting. But you can't deny she has a strong voice and wields it with a purpose.

This is sort of a story about a sleepover from hell: A woman’s first date in a long time is with a guy who’s a bad kisser, and they’re interrupted when a hot air balloon crashes into his pool and out pops a conservative billionaire who sleeps around and his liberal, philanthropist wife who thinks she wants to adopt a baby from Vietnam. (Both the billionaire and his wife are obsessed with his assistant, but for different reasons.) They all spend the night—sharing rooms and beds, not with the people they came in with—while the kids sleep downstairs. And then, somehow, the book gets weirder than a crashing hot air balloon as Johnny, Joannie, Jonathon, and Julia navigate their dynamic and interactions.

At its core, though, this is a book about relationships, parenthood, power dynamics, identity, and self-worth. The story starts as one thing, but as you spend time inside all the characters’ POVs, the story becomes one of how we find fulfillment, what we need to be happy, and how we get our lives back on track after they’ve been derailed. There’s a decent amount of heart and thoughtfulness under all these shenanigans.

Dermansky’s style—her quick chapters and even quicker sentences, her alternating POV chapters—make this a breezy read. And she manages to convey a ton of characterization in a slim novel. All these people are terrible in some way or another, but you understand some of them and root for a couple of them. Everyone is miserable. Everyone wants what someone else has. No one has any clue what on earth is going on. This novel felt a bit like a dream—hazy and unfocused with no real plot. But it’s a rollickingly strange time, and I had fun reading it. (I think?) Part of me wishes Dermansky had gone even weirder with the story and fleshed it out a little, but there's a good chance that if this book had been longer, what I found quirky would have become grating. 

I’m still not sure how I feel about Dermansky’s writing style, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this odd little book—but you can’t say it wasn’t enjoyable, and you can’t say she isn’t wickedly talented. 

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for providing me with an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a well paced read on the lighter side. The characters are well developed and interesting adding to read. All in all , it is worth my time to read it and I will read more from this author in the future. Thanks to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for a copy of this read.

Hot Air is full of messy, seemingly unhinged adults who collide at pivotal moments in their lives. A single mom with the adorable daughter. A single dad with a soccer playing son. A couple celebrating an anniversary. An assistant who sees and knows too much. Lives intertwine and liberties are taken with each other and with their hearts' desires as they try to figure out what's next for themselves. Two of them have a shared past that influences their present interaction, while two others make a quick decision to cross into intimate territory. One wants to reinvent themselves, while another wants to figure out who they are meant to be. Money, power, ego, sex, marriage, kids, and more are central to all their lives. And in the end, it seems to me that they are all just trying to escape their current situations.

This was a whirlwind of a ride that found adults making some questionable decisions as they questioned themselves. I liked the storyline pacing and the character descriptions. They were so well defined by the author that it left no imagination on who they were and how quickly I could probably pick them out if we were to pass on the street. Setting the timeline for when the country was coming out of the pandemic was very relatable to me. I can recall those feelings of concern/worry when first going back to public places. And as a Universal Studios fan, those scenes were all too real of being caught at a massive theme park feeling overstimulated and exhausted.

Solid 3.75 out of 5 star read for the moments that made me cringe, raise my eyebrows, laugh out loud, and shake my head. Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

Joannie hadn’t been on a date in seven years when Johnny invites Joannie and her daughter to dinner. His house is beautiful, his son is sweet, and their first kiss is, well, it’s not the best, but Joannie could convince herself it was nice enough. But when Joannie’s childhood crush, a summer-camp fling turned famous billionaire, crash-lands his hot-air balloon in Johnny’s swimming pool, Joannie dives in.
Soon she finds herself alighting on a lost weekend with Johnny, Jonathan, and Julia, his smart, stunning wife. Does Joannie want Jonathan? Does Julia want her husband? Or Joannie? Or Joannie’s beautiful little girl, Lucy? Does Johnny want Julia? Does Jonathan want Joannie, or Julia, or maybe, his much younger personal assistant, Vivian, who is tasked to fix it all? A tale of lust and money and lust for money.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for this digital e-arc.*

Real Rating: 3.75* of five

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_%26_Carol_%26_Ted_%26_Alice" target="_blank"><i>Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice</i></a> for modern times. A bit prim and a lot heteronormative for my taste.

I'm not mad about it, also not mad I read it. Some decent one-liners in here.

Hot Air begins with a bang - Joannie and Johnny are on a first date in his backyard when a hot air balloon crashes into Johnny’s pool. Even stranger is that the balloon pilot, Johnathon, is a famous billionaire and Joanie’s first kiss. Johnathon’s balloon adventure was supposed to be a romantic surprise for his wife, Julia, but, to be honest, Julia is rather sick of her husband’s antics. One night together soon turns into a weekend as their lives become even more entangled.

This book immediately sucked me in and before I knew it I was 30% of the way through. I loved how the author chose to tell the story from so many different points of view. Everyone was kind of terrible, but in seeing the weekend through their eyes they all made sense and felt real to me. Hot Air definitely kept me entertained and I wanted to see how the story would end, but then it was just over. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I still ended up feeling a little let down at the end as everyone just carries on with their lives as expected. But maybe that’s the point.

I really did enjoy this author’s storytelling and engaging writing style. I’m happy to see they have a backlist to explore and I look forward to reading from them again on the future.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for a review copy.

HOT AIR: A NOVEL seems like an over-reach on the title; this is a short book closer to a novella. The time frame is a short weekend plus and the setting might be just called ‘lifestyles influenced by extreme wealth.’ The characters are well-developed and their POV is completely explored and given voice. The problem is the characters are by turns privileged, entitled and annoying; they manage to break things and people in their world without regard for outcomes. Author Marcy Dermansky has created a clever little book and her imagination provides food for thought. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.