Even though I thought the book would be a lot more glamorous and old hollywood, I really enjoyed it for what it was. Lovely prose, an interesting story, raw and relatable characters and a good time.

This is a bit of a difficult book to review. On the one hand I can fully appreciate the gravity of its subject matter and there were times when I couldn’t put the book down, but on the other hand it took me SO long to get through. Some parts felt very slow paced and randomly-placed, causing the plot to feel disjointed. The ending was also a bit underwhelming and I expected a bit more from such an intricate story.

With all that being said, I am glad I carried on and saw the book to its end, and some parts definitely resonated.

Thank you to Astra House and NetGalley for the ARC :)

This was dripping with drama! A slow unraveling of a woman and her trauma and dealing with being gaslit. I thought this had a slow burn suspense that I really enjoyed.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to those who like reading about how women interact, especially famous ones.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

If I was going to pick one word for this book I would say "glamorous", but with a dash of ennui and tragedy. This book really is beautifully written--Barbara is lovable and compelling, her story is realistic, and obviously we get a huge glance into the life of a 1900s movie star. I do think that this book is likely carried by its setting, if I'm being honest. The 1920s-1970s are an iconic time in American history, and I do think that her story may have fallen a little flat without that background there. That being said, there's a reason Murphy chose that setting, and it workds really well! The comparisons of stars and atomic bombs and movie stars was so beautiful throughout the book, I was highlighting left and right.

2.5 ☆

This book description has everything you could want in a book. I quote: "a radiant novel tracking the lifecycle of a silver screen starlet rising against the backdrop of the mid-20th century." This sounds so interesting, right? Some of it was in fact interesting, but honestly, this novel felt so disjointed. We jumped around from past, to present, to slightly more past. Honestly, it felt like listening to an old Aunt who can only recall memories in fragments, ramble on about her past, but none of the stuff you actually want to hear about. I feel like we hear more about Barbara in the book's description than we do from the book's actual content.

That being said, there were some interesting parts of the book, some quotes that were particularly poignant, however that didn't make the rest of the book more enjoyable. It felt like every time we were settling into a particular part of the story, the next sentence was ripping us completely out of that and dropping us in the middle of a completely different part and it was so disorienting and disjointed.

This next part may be due to receiving an e-ARC of this book, and it not being the final product, but there was also a lot of either editing mistakes, or really strange editing choices. This book didn't appear to have chapters, and was only punctuated by sporadic photos (that I was originally concerned could be AI, but after seeing the image credits at the end, I'm glad to say I was wrong about that) that also sometimes happened in the middle of the current story arc?

I know there are books out there that don't use quotation marks when characters are speaking, but I am not a fan. Not only were there no quotation marks, but there were also no paragraph breaks to even indicate someone was talking. I often only realised a conversation was going on after the typical "he said/told me/etc".

Disclaimer: Thank you to Netgalley, Astra Publishing House, and Joni Murphy for this e-ARC. I was provided this ARC for review only, I was not paid for this review. All opinions are my own.

This review is difficult to write, because it’s hard to explain the tour de force that this book is. I absolutely love character driven novels and this one had everything that makes the narrative work. It was at times lyrical, stark, understated and paced so well. The narrative keeps moving, without needing to rely on heavy plot movement to keep it going. You will fall in love with Barbara, want to wrap her up in a hug, be amazed at her fortitude and inspired by how much she’s withstood.

This novel was too repetitive for me. This is a short book but it felt long and overwritten. Also, I didn’t like reading about an actress. Her childhood was interesting to read about, but overall I couldn’t connect with the protagonist or secondary characters.

Delighted to include this title in the March edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national lifestyle and culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

This book follows the trajectory of a woman’s life. From her traumatic childhood to her life as an actress on stage and in films. It covers her love affairs and reactions to historical events of the 20th century that correspond with Barbara’s life.

The narrator is Barbara, looking back on her life, particularly losing her mother to suicide as a child and her distant relationship with her scientist father. Some of Barbara’s introspection was interesting to read. I found her depiction of pre-roe abortion access particularly affecting since we now live in a post-roe era.

This book was fine. I didn’t really like it, but it wasn’t an unpleasant read.

DNF at 20%
Unfortunately, I found the tone very monotonous, not much variety. I just found it too boring from the start, personally. But I appreciate topics that were brought up and the synopsis as a whole.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book.

Oh, Barbara. Sometimes a book really will find you at the perfect time.
I've been thinking about David Lynch, so I've been thinking about the atomic bomb. When I was given the chance to read this book and I remember thinking, how funny, I remember walking out of the theatres in July 2023 thinking someone should write something that connects the events of Oppenheimer to the creation of the Barbie doll. Anyway, this book is not about that. But it is a story about creating, and its consequences. One woman's generational trauma set against a nuclear trauma that affected a whole generation.

"There are ways to survive an atomic blast my father said, but I wonder sometimes if he said that to give me something to hope for, in the event of a catastrophe.
My mother was so sad. She was sad enough to leave me and the world and now I can do nothing but remember her.”

Joni Murphy's Barbara is a delicious freudian dream of a character study.
Very much not a plot-driven sort of story, with paragraphs circling back and forth, run on prose becoming poetry – a brilliant, distant father's work on the Manhattan Project as a mother's fragile mind unravels towards the suicide that will be the bomb trickling radiation down throughout her child's life, all the nuclear explosions in all the nuclear compositions that came before them, and the culmination of this in Barbara, saint Barbara, the patron saint of mathematicians and those who work with explosions, a story of the many that starts with the one, a woman played by several women, who plays herself but also her mother and her grandmother. I could write an essay on this, but I'll spare us both.
I'd recommend this to anyone interested in “nothing” books, literary and historical fiction, troubled women in the mid 20th century, and especially to anyone who participated in the web weaving movement on tumblr from 2020 to 2022.
Thank you immensely to Astra House and Netgalley for this arc, and Joni Murphy for Getting It.

barbara was an intricate novel about many things but it was not about what the synopsis led me to believe, not really. while all in all it's a well-written, enjoyable novel, i did read with the expectation that it would explore more of what it promised to, or in more depth. her marriage, for instance, was presented as a complex but essential aspect of her life but didn't end up being that way. or, the interaction between the character herself and the political context she exists within—especially having grown up during the cold war with a father that worked on the atomic bomb—is discussed much later in the book. for most of it the political occurrences are reported in a way that is separate from the character entirely, which i understand may be intentional, but i was misled by the synopsis in this too. however, her mother's suicide was the event that propelled barbara into her subsequent life, and the complexities of the generational experiences she was shaped by were tied inextricably to the political realities of the setting. everything about this book was set up really well, i only wish the author had engaged with it all more in-depth.
thank you to astra house and netgalley for the arc!

Barbara is an arresting exploration of a woman’s psyche, offering a quiet yet unsettling study of 20th-century malaise.

Set in 1975, the novel follows Barbara, an actress in her early 40s, who spends her days confined to a hotel room, engaging in fleeting affairs with her leading man while reflecting on her life and career. At first, she seems poised yet resigned: “I got to be beautiful, and that determined the direction my whole life would take.” But as her narrative unfolds, the weight of her family’s past and the turbulence of the century emerge as central to her identity. While Barbara finds power in her beauty, she’s painfully aware of the effort it takes to fit into “the endless small rectangles controlled by grown men.”

A devoted cinephile, Barbara is captivated by the alchemy of filmmaking, embracing its methods, magic, and contradictions. Her passion for the craft—workshopping characters and creating authenticity in an artificial medium—mirrors her broader quest to make sense of life’s complexities. She applies this deconstructive lens to everything: her parents’ lives, war, gender, performance, and relationships. Her observations are startling in their clarity, such as when she reflects on her father: “He had appeared as a baby in the olden days, and by the time he died, the sky was speckled with satellites.”

Barbara’s voice, marked by its understated tone, is both disarming and absorbing. Is her simplicity a way to contain the chaos of her experiences, or is it a deliberate distancing from their enormity? The narrative, though structured, flows with the organic rhythm of a therapy session—a string of reflections that feel intimate and raw. Scattered photographs deepen its resonance, grounding her memories in a tangible space.

This is a quietly affecting novel, delivering its shocks and uncertainties with measured restraint. Its unassuming tone allows its truths to settle gradually, creating an emotional impact that feels both unexpected and profound.

I initially read the synopsis for this book and thought it was right up my alley, and I was right about that. I enjoyed reading through this book a lot, and it hits a lot of my personal interests, especially when it comes to Hollywood and film darlings trying to make it in the world. That isn't the entire focus of the book for sure--lots of meditations on grief and death are present throughout the novel. All in all, I thought the writing was clear and the pacing good; I enjoyed it a lot.

4 stars

This book on the surface may just appear to be about Hollywood fame and glamour. However, that does not even scratch the surface. Barbara delves into generational trauma and how to navigate through life and the people you meet along the way.

Naturally, I am interested in complex female characters within literature and the effects of beauty standards, societal standards and femininity. This book portrayed it all beautifully.

4.5 ⭐️

I think that I will have to revisit this review as I continue to sit with the book, but I really loved Joni Murphy's Barbara. I am biased; it touches upon many things that deeply interest me, personally: mid-20th century America, the problematization of celebrity, physics and the obsession of the scientist with forward progress, parental relationships complicated by tragedy and circumstance, beauty and femininity, and the experiences and motivations of performers. I think it is worthwhile for anyone interested in any one of those subjects to read this book. I thought the form was also interesting and appreciated the inclusion of photographs to ground the faux memoir in the material world.

I can see why readers who prefer a plot-driven book might feel like Barbara goes nowhere and has no point. I would not recommend the book to people who need a meaty plot and/or to those who don't enjoy literary fiction. I, clearly, don't feel this way. I enjoyed this as an expanded character study of a complex woman who has experienced a life that is at once fabulously charmed and extremely difficult. I will definitely be recommending this book to many people in my life with whom I think Barbara will resonate.

an interestingly done meditation on the characters that feels a bit too simplistic to fully fill its big shoes. 3 stasrs. tysm for the arc.

sadly i could not get into this at all. i did not feel invested in barbara’s story at all, and i think that the author’s depiction of old hollywood was sort of . . . bland? i don’t know. i just didn’t know what to make of it, honestly.

This book was a great look into old Hollywood and fame. As you follow the main character you watch her grow and also dive into her generational trauma. You learn how everyone around her helped shape or influence her own life and the choices she made and how your past choices can shape your life.
Thank you NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for the ARC!