I read this book rather hastily and discovered that smash-up isn't really my genre. If this is a metaphor for something, I didn't get it. However, this book came highly recommended to me and I believe it is me, the reader, not the writer. She's quite intelligent and knows how to craft her story and push it forward Not her fault I didn't care for it.

Vapor is a strange interpretation of Pygmalion (think George Bernard Shaw). Filipacchi has taken the premise of the play and turned it upside down, inside out, and chopped it up to make a cutting novel that will appeal to lovers of books like Catch-22 and the works of Kurt Vonnegut.

Anna Graham is an acting student in New York City, who is told by her instructor that she will never be much of an actor and perhaps, she should consider letting another more excellent student use her name as the other’s stage name. She takes it hard, but Anna considers what she should do about, because she will not quit acting.

Out late one night, Anna is down in the subway dressed in a garish fairy queen costume when a lone man is being attacked down on the tracks. She takes her industrial strength pepper spray and saves the man from his attackers. Anna becomes oddly entranced by Damon and hopes he calls her to thank her for coming to his aid. Filipacchi draws Anna as a strange, unreal person. Her reactions are odd and can’t possibly live off the page, but that doesn’t matter. Her oddities and perceptions are what make her such an engaging character.

Even with all of her eccentricities, Anna doesn’t compare to Damon. He wears only see-through clothing, giving up on opaque clothes ages ago, he’s very particular about the pH balance of his bottled water, and he’s a cloud scientist who fabricates small clouds that fit in rooms. Also, he decides to kidnap Anna and keep her in a cage. His rationale is to whip her into shape to become an excellent actress. She is obstinate, of course, as one would be if they were being held in a cage and forced to act out scenes with their captor.

There are so many layers to this novel. Filippachi is entirely successful in presenting such off characters engaging in unexpected and fantastic behavior. The prose is so effortless as you read each chapter wondering what could possibly happen next. I’m hesitant to give any more of the plot away as there are far more twists that are taken and excellent characters squeezing their way out onto the page.

This comic novel takes a strange look at the Pygmalion myth that has so permeated our culture and literature. It can be read for it’s unique look at the female form and what is expected of women in entertainment. Bluntly, Vapor is hilarious even during the most absurd moments. I found myself laughing at many of Filipacchi’s sentences and for her whip smart narrative, which should be enough for any reader.

An interesting construct of satire and fantasy, the slow development and near deadpan delivery of the narrative belie the pointed and often amusing jabs taken at all things ‘celebrity’ and the compulsions that often override sense and humanity in the quest for fame at all costs.

Anna is a middle of the road person – not a great actress, not a great thinker, not particularly gorgeous or even talented: but her overwhelming desire and obsession is to become a famous and lauded actress. Essentially lacking in talent or the emotional honesty to see this, her ‘exercises’ in emotional portrayals were intriguing, even as her own interior monologue shows her utter disconnect with the material, and lack of depth in her own experience to find and make that connection. What is even funnier is that she is constantly trying to ‘downplay’ her aggressive tendencies, at a suggestion from her acting coach.

When she happens to be in the right place to save a man from a mugging, the story starts to take some ridiculously odd twists that serve to keep the reader off balance, but always intrigued. Damon was the man Anna saved, a scientist who sees her as the epitome of woman, and his repayment for her good deed is to grant her a wish, and then kidnap her to keep her for himself.

Yeah- it’s weird, and it’s twisty and funny and particularly pointed, leaving me much like a character in the book – there are celebrities that we see who have no particular talent, skill or redeeming features – yet there is an appeal, a draw. And that is Anna in a nutshell. Delightfully quick to read, the story feels lighthearted and fluffy, but when you finish, you cannot stop thinking about it. Information about celebrity, self-absorption and self-awareness and do they necessarily cancel one another out, or does the gain of one mean the loss of another? I’ll leave you to figure that all out with this unique novel.

I received an eBook copy of the title from the publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.