ARC REVIEW: The Paper Wasp – by Lauren Acampora

Title: The Paper Wasp
Author: Lauren Acampora
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary
First published: June 11th 2019
Publisher: Grove Press
Finished reading: May 24th 2019
Pages: 240

“No one wants the truth. We don’t want to live with it; we don’t want to bathe in it. We want to supplant it. We want the dream, not the real. We long for fabrication, hallucination, false catastrophe.”

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Grove Press in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

I admit I have been curious about this story as soon as I first saw the cover of The Paper Wasp, and I’ve been looking forward to pick it up ever since. I know it sounds like a cliche, but the phrase ‘it’s not you, it’s me‘ is actually quite a good representation of my feelings about this story. Even though the blurb itself sounded intriguing enough to have my interest piqued immediately, I’m afraid the actual story ended up being not exactly my cup of tea. Of course these feelings are subjective and The Paper Wasp is by no means a bad read, but I’ll try to explain why it wasn’t a right fit for me. It’s hard to put my finger exactly on the why, but I think a lot of my lack of connection to the story had to do with the writing style. The writing and tone of The Paper Wasp was too aloof and cumbersome to my taste and it almost felt as if it was trying to hard to be overly complicated and ‘literary fiction worthy’. I can appreciate lush writing and wonderful phrasing, but in this case I don’t think this particular writing style matched the premise of the story.

The Paper Wasp basically focuses on toxic relationships and the interaction between Abby and Elise. Other characters are in play, but these two women are in the spotlight and the focus is on their relationship and character development. The thing is, I really didn’t like either of them and for a character-driven story this makes it a lot harder to stay invested. The whole Perren angle is used to give the story a surreal air and it can be said that makes the story more unique, but I personally found it to be mostly confusing instead. Abby is a strange strange character, and while I love my quirky and unique characters, she is particularly hard to like. The superficial Hollywood cliche character in Elise is equally difficult to connect with… And these feelings didn’t change as I got to know them better. The ending definitely came as a surprise, but I’m not sure if it was a good surprise this time around. In fact, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the facts and how the plot was developed… Between the overly cumbersome writing style, unlikeable characters and an unconvincing plot development, sadly The Paper Wasp wasn’t my cup of tea. But I also know that the right person will love spending time with this story.