Book Review: The Nest

The Basics

• Title: The Nest
• Author: Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
• Genre: Fiction
• Structure: Interlocking stories
• First Line: “As the rest of the guests wandered the deck of the beach club under an early-evening midsummer sky, taking pinched, appraising sips of their cocktails to gauge if the bartenders were using the top-shelf stuff and balancing tiny crab cakes on paper napkins while saying appropriate things about how they’d really lucked out with the weather because the humidity would be back tomorrow, or murmuring inappropriate things about the bride’s snug satin dress, wondering if the spilling cleavage was due to bad tailoring or poor taste (a look as their own daughters might say) or an unexpected weight gain, winking and making tired jokes about exchanging toasters for diapers, Leo Plumb left his cousin’s wedding with one of the waitresses.”

The Good

The good doesn’t exist. For every book I read, I try to reap something out of it. This book is dead. The story is dead. And on the way to its grave, it took the livelihood of literature. This book is 353 of mind-numbing rich middle-aged white people problems. But let me save the in-depth on that for the next section.

The Bad

I knew it was going to be bad once I reached page 100 and nothing happened yet. Folks, that’s 1/3 of the way through the book! Frankly, I have not a single clue as to why this book was so popular. Maybe people were paid to give it a good review? Maybe it was the pretty cover? No idea. Typically, I number the good things about the book, but this time, I’m numbering the bad.

1. This is a book about four whiny middle-aged white people. To say they’re fairly well off is an understatement. To top it off, each character is just another variation on the other. There is NOTHING that makes these characters interesting! Gay brother? Boo. Closeted lesbian daughter? Boo. Another brother with a drug addiction? Boo, boo, boo! The tropes and cliches are so overwhelming I had to practice yoga breathing just to read the damn thing.
2. The tropes and cliches aren’t even good. It’s clear she didn’t do her research. In fact, the cliches are downright insulting to anyone who would remotely try to relate to them. They read like societal assumptions: gays are “flamboyount” and “theatrical”, druggies are “selfish” and “not functional”. These characters weren’t even given the decency of souls; just stereotypes. Don’t even get me started on the ONE singular black person or the ONE singular latina in the book. Actually, do. Do get me started because that really set me off.
3. There is a definite underlying racism here. The only black girl is described as a trouble-maker (really?). The only Latina was described as a moocher (really?!). Not only that, the black character was used more as a sexual object than a person and same with the Latina. Absolutely made my blood boil.
4. In addition to the blatant insults to a vast majority of people, this book is mind-numbingly boring. The book where nothing happens. Seriously. You have four grown adults squabbling over some sort of trust fund called “The Nest”. That’s it. Really.
5. The writing is meh. It’s not horrible, but it’s nothing to write home about. There were times where I would read words and think, “Someone had to pull out the thesaurus”. You know those writers who throw in big words to show their reader just how intellectual and well-written they are? Yep. This book hits it straight on. I think it was a poorly managed cover-up for a horrible storyline.

The Sweet Spots

In this section, I cover some of my deeper, personal thoughts. Books are meant to make you think. I always think the best books are the ones that help you discover pieces of yourself.

• Did this book remind you of anything that has happened to you?: Nope. I am white. I grew up around middle-aged white people, but it was nothing close to this. Usually, when adults whined this much about their lives, they were politely listened to and then dismissed because there is something seriously wrong with being that ungrateful about everything.
• Did this book give you any new ideas of yourself?: I thought a lot about what I could be doing instead of reading that book, like shaving my toes, washing my cat, individually cataloguing the hairs on my head.
• What lesson did you learn?: The ugliest thing in life is living such an un-enriching life that all you do is complain about money. Stop waiting for people to save you. Stop waiting for said event to happen before you live. And being thankless and entitled is the least attractive thing on earth.

Conclusion

This book literally sold for the cover. Save yourself the $20 and go buy something different instead. Here are some ideas. I wanted to stop reading this book after page 100, but I read it cover-to-cover so I could come back to you all with the most honest and fullest review I could give. It’s my opinion that if the story doesn’t pick up after Chapter 5, it’s a dud. There’s only one book like that that proved that theory wrong (in case you’re wondering, it’s All the Light We Cannot See). So, spare yourself, spare your brain, spare your wallet. Pick a different book because you’re not missing anything.