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Love Slave
by
Jennifer Spiegel (Goodreads Author)
"I can write the pants off any man," declares Sybil Weatherfield, the plucky hero of Jennifer Spiegel’s Love Slave. A literary novel set in 1995 New York, Love Slave follows Weatherfield and her strange friends as they frustrate chick-lit expectations (though they’re unaware that they’re doing so) in this uproarious, genre-breaking spree. By day Sybil is an office temp, an...more
Paperback, 280 pages
Published
September 4th 2012
by Unbridled Books
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I've only just started this book, but can already tell I'm going to enjoy it! Can't wait to see how the main character ends up!
Well, that didn't take long. I so wanted to know what happened to Sybil that I picked it up every chance I could get. I won this book in one of Goodreads' giveaways (thank you, Jennifer Spiegel!) a while back and wasn't able to get around to reading it until now. Wish I'd have picked it up sooner.
While Sybil's life is a FAR cry from mine, hers in NYC, mine in Portland Or...more
Well, that didn't take long. I so wanted to know what happened to Sybil that I picked it up every chance I could get. I won this book in one of Goodreads' giveaways (thank you, Jennifer Spiegel!) a while back and wasn't able to get around to reading it until now. Wish I'd have picked it up sooner.
While Sybil's life is a FAR cry from mine, hers in NYC, mine in Portland Or...more
Jennifer Spiegel gives us a refreshingly new take on the love story. Love slave is a book many of the 90s generation can relate too. Also, Sybil is highly relatable to the 30+ women who are feeling the need to settle down and make something of their lives. When I started this book I didn’t think I was going to like it. It is quirky, but funny and endearing in its quirks. Sybil and Rob are adorably devastated…I don’t know how else to put it. They are both so tragic, but with depth and emotion and...more
I picked up this book because Jennifer is a fellow ASU Alum and my Facebook Friend. (Is there an acronym for that yet? FBF? Is that too much like, and so totally different from, BFF?)
I might even have met Jennifer in person a few times, but don't hold me to that because I have taught at ASU for 20 years and can't remember all 20-25K people I have encountered. But I love her sense of humor online and I wanted to support her by buying the book and I'm glad I did.
I have to say first that this is a...more
I might even have met Jennifer in person a few times, but don't hold me to that because I have taught at ASU for 20 years and can't remember all 20-25K people I have encountered. But I love her sense of humor online and I wanted to support her by buying the book and I'm glad I did.
I have to say first that this is a...more
It's the mid-nineties and Sybil Wetherfield is a thirty year old New Yorker trying to uncover who she really is, what she wants out of life, what she wants out of love.
Sybil is witty, sarcastic, a cynic. She's getting older, stuck in a temporary state of unrest. She considers herself an artist, writing a column for a weekly newspaper, but temping to make ends meet. Her one good friend is a girl she met temping who longs to get out of New York. She's in a mediocre relationship with what should be...more
Sybil is witty, sarcastic, a cynic. She's getting older, stuck in a temporary state of unrest. She considers herself an artist, writing a column for a weekly newspaper, but temping to make ends meet. Her one good friend is a girl she met temping who longs to get out of New York. She's in a mediocre relationship with what should be...more
I'm conflicted. Parts made me yearn, parts strained my patience, but mostly things didn't hit me as hard as I really, really wanted them to.
I'm not totally sure it should get a 3 from me, but I don't want to inflate it to a 4, and there isn't a 3.5 or 3.75, which is what I would like to rate it. I did like it a good bit. Not, like, love love love transformed me while I was reading it like, but I can see why the Unbridled guy at BEA was hyping it so hard.
There are some things that need to be fi...more
I'm not totally sure it should get a 3 from me, but I don't want to inflate it to a 4, and there isn't a 3.5 or 3.75, which is what I would like to rate it. I did like it a good bit. Not, like, love love love transformed me while I was reading it like, but I can see why the Unbridled guy at BEA was hyping it so hard.
There are some things that need to be fi...more
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Love Slave in an unusual love story. Sybil Weatherfield works as a temp in NYC. But her temp status goes beyond her job. She tends to be a temp lover as well: never too invested. She writes a column for The New York Shock, which is placed strategically between chapters. Writing is her art. It is what she lives for and yet she has to temp to pay the bills. When she meets Rob, the lead singer in the band Glass Half Empty, she finds a friend that can really understand her. As artists and New Yorker...more
A fun and hip and heartfelt tale of a woman finding her way in NYC in the 90s. The author handles the delayed love-story with perfect pitch and careful enticements. A charming and almost joyful book about a gritty world.
Love Slave is the story of Sybil Weatherfield (love her name!) and she works as a temp and a columnist in New York City, which she can't seem to get out of. She appreciates the freaks too much for keeping her sane. Sybil has two faithful friends, Madeline, a human rights organization paper pusher, and Rob, a singer for a band called Glass Half Empty who still wears the wedding ring of his wife who died of cancer, along with her boyfriend, Jeff, who she describes as nice. The title comes from whe...more
This is a powerful book, because it follows a original sequence of experiences. No other romance or novel about young adulthood reads quite the same way. Sybil experiences feelings of happiness or loneliness in a concentrated way that takes many of us back to those early adult years. She is real about her experiences and does not try to sugar coat them. It takes both the good experiences and the bad to lead Sybil to unexpected place. Also, if you have lived in New York and then lived elsewhere,...more
I thought I was bothered and ask myslef too much questions ... I met my master in the person of Sybil Weatherfield.
She has everything to be happy but she takes a while to understand that simple fact. Like what, sometimes to find yourself alone to eat black bread help you to view life with a new perspective.
Sybil expects sparks. The little something to transform her life into a fairy tale worthy of the red carpet. In short, this is a young woman who is afraid to grow, engage and see life as it i...more
She has everything to be happy but she takes a while to understand that simple fact. Like what, sometimes to find yourself alone to eat black bread help you to view life with a new perspective.
Sybil expects sparks. The little something to transform her life into a fairy tale worthy of the red carpet. In short, this is a young woman who is afraid to grow, engage and see life as it i...more
Funny and oh so witty! I found out extremely charming
A novel about disaffected 30-somethings in New York City in the mid-1990s. The main character, Sybil, writes a column called "Abscess" for New York Shock magazine where she chronicles her love/hate relationship with her adopted city. She loves freaks even though she shops at the Gap. She loves food even though she binges and purges. She is all about temping, unable to commit to anything. But then she meets a rock musician still wearing a wedding ring despite the fact that his wife died 7 years b...more
I’m just going to say this right now: I know Jennifer Spiegel. I have known her for 20 something years having met in college, losing touch and reconnecting a couple of years ago via Facebook. She asked me to read her book, but she’s asking everyone. She should. If a writer can’t or won’t promote his or her own work, who will? It’s her first published novel and this is a pretty super freaking big deal if you ask… well, anyone. What she didn’t ask me to do, however, was review it. But as I read it...more
Set in nineties New York when the craziness of the streets is mirrored in the craziness of life in this vibrant city. Sybil Weatherfield is an office temp by day but ,by night she becomes a journalist writing for New York Shock - her column "Abcess" makes her something of a minor celebrity.
But life is transient and Sybil seems to float in a blur of temporary status until she hooks up with Rob - he's the lead singer in a rock band called Glass Half Empty, who is quietly mourning but covering his...more
My somewhat ordered thoughts...
I got it because I heard the author speak at a fiction reading at Arizona State University and knew that I wanted to get a copy when it came out in paperback.
I very, very much liked it. I like the story of Sybil, Madeline, Jeff and Rob, and all the other people in New York. It captures nicely what is was like in the '90s and she gets a lot of the pop culture references correctly. Which as a gen-xer, I do care about.
I liked a lot of the imagery and word choicage....more
I got it because I heard the author speak at a fiction reading at Arizona State University and knew that I wanted to get a copy when it came out in paperback.
I very, very much liked it. I like the story of Sybil, Madeline, Jeff and Rob, and all the other people in New York. It captures nicely what is was like in the '90s and she gets a lot of the pop culture references correctly. Which as a gen-xer, I do care about.
I liked a lot of the imagery and word choicage....more
I happened to start watching Girls the same week I started this book, it was like I couldn't get enough of white women in New York, in the 90's and today! While I never felt fully invested in the book, by the end I was hoping for the romance to happen. It kind of snuck up on me, that I cared at all. There is something I appreciated about the main character, about her stuckness, her unhappiness, her relative poverty.
I liked this book just fine. I didn't love it. The interludes which were from the main character's column were a little excruciating to read. I wouldn't exactly recommend it with a lot of gusto, but if you find yourself with a copy and a few days in prison or somewhere where you similarly have nothing to better to do, it won't make your life any worse. I want to give it 2.5, but I'll round up to three.
Sybil Weatherfield is a 30-something living in 1990s New York City. Like many Gen Xers, she fled to the city after college to pursue real life experiences but ends up living a temporary life. Yes, she works as a temp but she also seems to be in a temporary relationship and a temporary friendship. Even the food she eats is temporary since she binges and purges most of it.
Even though Sybil wasn't the most lovable character, she reminded me of people I know and I was happy to drift through her days...more
Even though Sybil wasn't the most lovable character, she reminded me of people I know and I was happy to drift through her days...more
Feb 25, 2013
Erica
added it
I gave up on this book about 150 pages in when I realized that I hated the main character, the supporting characters, and the entire plot. This isn't very eloquent, but I just had a moment where I realized "I am not enjoying this at all."
Not the type of story or book I like to read but if you are into modern romantic novels, then this book is for you.
Its about a young journalist who lives in NYC and deals with relationships, life and work.
Typical story for a post grad student.
Its about a young journalist who lives in NYC and deals with relationships, life and work.
Typical story for a post grad student.
Read the kindle version and some of the sentences seemed in the wrong place. This might have affected my rating.
Oct 02, 2012
C
marked it as to-read
From Indie Book webinar
I recieved this as a First Read but it was not really what I expected when I entered to win, but not in a bad way. Spiegel is obviously a very intelligent writer, but sometimes her good story about very realistic people gets weighted down with that intelligence. Do people really talk like this or is it just in New York? Still, it was a suprisingly quick, enjoyable (at times painful on purpose) read about people and their relationships.
Sep 18, 2012
Shannon (Giraffe Days)
marked it as unfinished
DNF
What a mess! Can't tell how much of it is the lack of formatting and chopping up of the text in my e-book galley from Netgalley, and how much of it is the story itself, but either way I just can't finish it.
What a mess! Can't tell how much of it is the lack of formatting and chopping up of the text in my e-book galley from Netgalley, and how much of it is the story itself, but either way I just can't finish it.
Excellent read. Jennifer Spiegel crafts a tale of choppy prose and snippets of totally quotable--very poignant--language. My best discovery in terms of e-books this year.
Sample on the Nook - seems a little stream-of-consciousnessy, but might be worth looking in to if I can ever find it.
Anxious, real, unfair, and neurotic. Loved it.
its such a great book. I loved it.
from publisher
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Jennifer Spiegel has an MA in Politics from New York University, and an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Arizona State. She teaches college classes. A short story collection, THE FREAK CHRONICLES, is forthcoming in June 2012 (Dzanc Books). A novel, LOVE SLAVE, is forthcoming in the fall of 2012 (Unbridled Books). She lives with her husband and two kids in Arizona. Please visit her at www.jen...more
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