A Very Nice Girl

by Imogen Crimp

A bitingly honest, darkly funny debut about ambition, sex, power, and love, Imogen Crimp's A Very Nice Girl cracks open the timeless questions of what it is to be young, what it is to want to be wanted, and what it is to find your calling but lose your way to it.

Anna doesn’t fit in. Not with her wealthy classmates at the selective London Conservatory where she unexpectedly wins a place after university, not with the family she left behind, and definitely not with Max, a man she meets in the bar where she sings for cash. He’s everything she’s not—rich, tailored to precision, impossible to read—and before long Anna is hooked, desperate to hold his attention, and determined to ignore the warning signs that this might be a toxic relationship.

As Anna shuttles from grueling rehearsals to brutal auditions, she finds herself torn between two conflicting desires: the drive to nurture her fledgling singing career, which requires her undivided attention, and the longing for human connection. When the stakes increase, and the roles she’s playing—both on stage and off—begin to feel all-consuming, Anna must reckon with the fact that, in carefully performing what’s expected of her as a woman, she risks losing sight of herself completely.

Both exceedingly contemporary and classic, A Very Nice Girl reminds us that even once we have taken possession of our destinies we still have the power to set all we hold dear on fire.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Romance, Coming Of Age, Adult, Novels

336 pages, Hardcover

First published February 8, 2022

About the author

Imogen Crimp studied English at Cambridge, followed by an MA in contemporary literature at UCL, where she specialized in female modernist writers. After university, she briefly studied singing at a London conservatoire. She was born in 1989 and lives in London.

Reviews

[emma · Rating 1 out of 5]

Actually stunned by how much I hated this.

You may be saying, emma, that should not be surprising. It has a low average rating and just because you saw its pretty cover illuminated as if from heaven by the sunlight streaming in a newly discovered cute indie bookstore doesn't mean you were universally preordained to like it.

And to that hypothetical statement from a person I just made up, I say:
1) it should, and
2) I like lit fic with low averages all the time.

But in this case - possibly the first time I have allowed myself to break my only-buy-books-you-have-read-and-liked rule in several years, meaning I spent $28 to have this deeply unpleasant experience - that did not apply.

This was not for me, which is a nice way of saying I hated it and think it sucks.

But I'm not saying that, because I'm polite.

In this book, we follow a girl whose name I don't remember - Anna, oops - who wants to be an opera singer. She's in school for it, but she's Not Like Other Opera Students, because she is not rich. She lives with a perfect best friend, Laurie, she has overly strict and clingy parents who Just Don't Get It, and sometimes she has to work at a jazz club (also singing) in order to afford tuition and whatnot.

How she suffers.

She is also the worst.

(As someone who had to work through college, like a normal person, having a job within the field you're passionate about that you have to do, like, 2 nights a week sounds like a goddamn daydream.) (But whatever.)

Soon she meets a rich handsome older guy at said jazz situation, and, shock of shocks, begins a toxic and financially dependent relationship with him that will ultimately be her downfall.

Point for point, plot for plot, this is a worse, deluded version of Conversations with Friends that manages to miss the entire intention of Conversations with Friends.

I learned the "Not every book about a younger woman and an older, handsome, captivating man embarking on an all-encompassing and toxic romance that talks about what it is to be an adult, in a young woman's body, and mentally ill along the way can be Sally Rooney quality!" lesson all over again.

Let's get into the specifics:
- This book has a terrible main character, which can be fine and even good for me. I love evil women. I'm the same girl who once sided with an ex's mean girl roommate solely because she was mean and a girl. But Anna is not really complicated, or nuanced - she is mostly just an annoying theater kid. And that is unforgivable.

- Worse, we can never escape Anna, because THIS BOOK IS IN THE FIRST PERSON. Usually when people make a comment in a review like "this is first person present and I hate first person present!!" I am impressed, because my brain rarely works in perspective like that. But now, I get it. Now I hate first person, and it's Anna's fault. I pray for the sweet mercy of distance provided by third.

- I couldn't get into the writing. I had my pen in hand, ready to underline some outstanding passage or poetic turn of phrase or relatable moment, and that pen went unused entirely. A cap-on situation from page one.

- So much hypocrisy! I think there's intended to be a bit of questioning here, as Anna judges other women (especially my sweet angel Laurie) for not being feminist enough, but she also points out that this random play she sees isn't, even as she remains the most anti-feminist character I have ever encountered. Thankfully this book is going to be largely unread, because if it was in the hands of the general public, it would single-handedly set back the rights of women by a half-century or so.

- At one point, we pause to indulge Anna on a whiny soliloquy - the likes of which, in point of fact, makes up roughly 90% of this book as we spend it all tortuously subjected to the contents of her head - on the state of opera. I don't want opera to be like this! she says. I don't want it all to be slutty women, hurt women, assaulted women, tragedies occurring to women. And then we continue on with the book, which is completely and entirely about the exact same goddamn thing. Anna's life imitating her art, I suppose.

- There is so much selfishness and entitlement in this book. If you cannot really sit down and suspend your disbelief and buy into the idea that the single worst thing going on in the world today is that opera is a bit elitist, you won't have a good time.

- What was the point of any of this? I can try to buy into the idea that any of these awful things were intentional, but if I do, they don't provide any clarity on what we're doing here. By the end, we remain immersed in a toxic wasteland of middling happiness and repeated mistakes, trapped in a watery and half-baked ideology that is neither how I see the world nor how I want to.

- The ending pissed me off. Bad. Permanently.

I think I'm done complaining, but in a much more real way I will be hating on this for the rest of my life.

Bottom line: Least enjoyable book I've read in recent memory! A fun superlative.

---------------
tbr review

they wrote a book about me :)

okay fine. no one has ever called me nice

[Meike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a weird one: I can't deny that I enjoyed listening to the audiobook, but frankly, this isn't a particularly smart or nuanced work. Our unreliable narrator is 25-year-old Anna, a rural working-class kid who comes to the big city to study opera. She enters an affair with Max, a 40-ish London banker, and from the very first scene when they meet in a bar where Anna jobs as a jazz singer, the dynamic between them is established: Max intentionally makes the younger woman feel insecure, and she consciously tries to please him, fully aware that she generally tends to adjust her behavior according to what the people around her want her to be. Max makes it clear from the beginning that he doesn't want a serious relationship, but here we encounter another trait of Anna's: Throughout the book, people tell her who they are, but she refuses to believe it, and gets carried away with projections. This also interfers with her career, as she tries to hide away from issues, until she can't anymore. You could argue that Anna is young and there is an uneven power dynamic in many relationships depicted throughout the book, and you would be 100 % correct, but you can't argue that this means that Anna bears no responsibility for her actions - and this crux is central to the novel's intrigue.

So yes, the book does ponder class: Dreamy small town girl Anna is always broke and doesn't know the ropes around the opera world, while older, worldlier, tougher Max is a pragmatic, upperclass guy. Crimp makes this combination less clichéd than it sounds now; I have to give it to the book that it is quite a pageturner. The core feature is that Anna is unreliable, and crucial information is left out - she is clearly not the innocent "very nice girl", and it becomes clear that Anna has a hard time taking responsibility for her actions; in how far that is true for Max intentionally remains foggy: He might go way too far.

The rights for this debut were sold in a bidding auction, and now it's marketed with the two magic words when it comes to new young female writers: Sally Rooney. But Imogen Crimp is no Sally Rooney, and she doesn't have to be -leave this poor woman and her talent alone, because she clearly can write and should have the space to find her own topics and her own voice without being marketed as "the new XYZ". Besides, the dramatic angle of the opera world is something that Rooney wouldn't choose; Rooney's tone is more somber, and while Crimp adresses woke politics in an often mocking, ironic way, Rooney is dead serious. These women are not comparable, if you take a closer look. Let them live and write, for Christ's sake.

But mentioning the opera world, Crimp makes an effort to connect the operas Crimp performs in with the story she tells, but she doesn't elaborate enough on this angle, although it could have been fascinating. As a Künstlerroman talking about an artist coming into herself, it's only partly successful, mainly because the things that happen are obvious and flashy to the max (haha, Max, sorry).

So all in all, Imogen Crimp is a promising writer, but this work does not live up to its promise, it's not nuanced and intricate enough. Still, I would like to read Crimp's next effort, because I feel like there is a lot more to her talent than this first attempt.

[leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

a very nice girl follows anna, a 24-year old who’s training to be an opera singer at a prestigious conservatory in london. while working at a hotel bar to support her studies, she meets max, an older financier who is handsome, mysterious, cold, and also in the midst of a divorce. anna is unsure what to make of him at first, but after a series of dates at expensive restaurants and nights spent in his city-centre flat, she becomes increasingly fixated on him, clinging onto their relationship at the expense of her own life and burgeoning career.

like many contemporary authors before her - sally rooney, naoise dolan, raven leilani - crimp’s debut forefronts a young woman’s relationship with an older, richer man. inevitably, this leads to explorations of power dynamics and financial inequality, which seep out until eventually the cracks of a toxic relationship begin to show. however, crimp’s examination of this kind of relationship is compulsively subtle. even until the end, the book toys with the reader’s perception of who is occupying the role of the villain, or if there is even one at all. max gives anna envelopes of cash, regularly questions the likelihood of her career ambitions, criticises her friends, and subtly encourages her to quit her job - thereby cutting off her only form of financial independence. but anna accepts the money, (sometimes even stealing cash from his bedside table), ignores the concern of her friends, and begins to abandon her classes and auditions in favour of spending more time with max. in this way, the characters become increasingly complex and nuanced, aided by the dialogue which is realistic, sharp, and witty.

we remain in anna’s head for the duration of the book and although it’s told in first-person narration, anna always remains somewhat elusive, and as a reader you can’t seem to shake the feeling that she’s some form of an unreliable narrator. anna’s thoughts continuously tumble out onto the page as her life becomes more off-centre, the absence of quotation marks emphasising her rambling stream of consciousness.

desire is a prominent theme in the book - anna’s desire to follow her dreams, to be loved, to be financially secure. while sometimes contradictory, these desires hold up a mirror to the plights of many young women today. stripped back, the book provides another raw portrait of a young woman trying to figure out where she fits in the world. being in your twenties has been documented as the most confusing time of your life, so i don’t think the popularity of these twenty-something bildungsromans will be slowing down anytime soon, and i definitely don’t want them to.

with commentary on class, finding your footing as a twenty-something, relationship power dynamics, and many interesting discussions on feminism, this novel could definitely become the next big ‘sad girl’ novel (especially on booktok)


[Thank you to Bloomsbury for the advanced copy - this book comes out Feb 8th!]

[Alexis Hall]

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you!)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

It’s an odd business, coming to a book you know publishing is setting up to succeed. This one was won in something like a four-way auction in my neck of the woods and a five-way stateside, plus pre-emptive translation deals in multiple other countries. The amount of money that must have changed hands over this is slightly unimaginable to me and I find myself asking the sort of questions that no individual text should bear the weight of: such as, what should a multimillion dollarpound book be like?

All of which is slightly ironic because of the central questions of A Very Nice Girl is, what is art worth.

In any case this, is a very good book. I might even go far as to say—and for what little my judgement worth—an exceptional book. Is multimillion dollarpounds of exceptional? Who the fuck knows? But then, Simon and Schuster were willing to fork over $4 million dollars to Mike Pence to talk about himself so who the fuck knows anything?

A Very Nice Girl (a title which seems very much imposed on the book by a team who hasn’t read but is determined to sell it into a certain market) explores a year in the life of Anna: a trainee opera singer who came to London, without the emotional or financial support of her life, to study a prestigious conservatory and, y’know, follow her dream and shit. Anna is an interesting character, being both extremely ambitious and extremely damaged, though she’s also quite elusive. A strange side effect of the first-person narration is that the focus is so claustrophobic, and Anna herself so unreliable, that it’s impossible to actually to see her clearly.

Anyway, while working one of many low-paid singing jobs, Anne meets Max, a forty-year-old city financier. He’s handsome, cold, in the midst of a divorce, she doesn’t even think she likes him very much. But, somehow, she wants his approval. And so they go to dinner, and so they begin a … well. A relationship in all but name. As Anna struggles with the various expenses of living in London, Max lends her money, finds her flat, and gradually Anna finds herself sacrificing more and more of her burgeoning career to the possibility of love, and future, with Max.

So far, so much a story we’ve all read before. And yet. And yet. I don’t have multimillion dollarpounds to back me up but I can’t deny there’s *something* here. Something that makes what could so easily have been a fairly conventional story of a toxic relationship, a bad man and a vulnerable young woman feel unique and intriguing. It’s neither a thriller nor a romance, but it contains the elements I particularly admire in both: a tautly constructed narrative coupled with razor-sharp character work. Above all, I think, a commitment to emotional ambiguity and complex character dynamics that have left me thinking about A Very Nice Girl long after I finished reading it.

It’s also a hard book to talk about because it plays so much with perception, interpretation and uncertainty. Even now, I’m sitting here, trying to assess (without going full victim-blame) the degree to which Max was emotionally abusive. Because, as the book itself points out, while Anna discusses her relationship with her best friend Laurie, there is a narrative here—a simpler, cleaner, more feminist-friendly narrative—where he is, and that’s the end of it. And, oh God, I feel like I’m inviting people to throw well-deserved tomatoes at me if I sit here talking about complicity, but Anna is not a simple protagonist and I feel it does the book a disservice to view her as one. She is a woman who excels at being other people: whether that is her mother’s coddled daughter, Laurie’s hard-up bestie, the characters she transforms herself into on stage. And there is no getting away from the fact that while Max (for all he has issues and vulnerabilities of his own) is, in many ways, a destructive force in Anna’s life, he is only the most categorisable one. We accept the narrative of women re-shaping themselves to please men. But what about other women? Parents. Friends. Colleagues. Teachers. Yes, individual men may simply not notice, or take for granted, the degree to which women change aspects of their lives to accommodate them but what is it about way we raise women, about the social context they inhabit, that creates this expectation with women themselves.
And again: please let me emphasise a million times over I am not sitting here swallowing a red pill being like “aaahhhhh but are not *women* the real abusers here.” But for me, part of what’s fascinating about A Very Nice Girl is that allows these questions to exist and for the reader to find their own answers. As it does its messy, flawed and very human heroine.

Stepping away from really difficult topics, I’ll just add that both the dialogue and the writing are very sharp, darkly amusing when they need to be, but also kind of devastating. I also really loved all the stuff about opera, and training to be a professional singer, and the way gender affects both. Max is an incredibly deft, and not wholly unsympathetic, portrait of a particular type of man (like a large proportion of the people I went to university with have turned into him). Slightly less successful for me was Laurie, occupying the brash best friend role (although, again, she not occupy this role uncomplicatedly) and her circle of loudly feminist friends: while they often had meaningful things to say about gender dynamics, they also often came as quite stereotypical (for example, refusing to use sanitary products, and leaving blood on the furniture, because they don't believe menstruation is something to be ashamed of). The only other thing that irritated me slightly—and this feels entirely subjective—was I wasn’t mad keen on the lack of dialogue markers and absent capitalisation. A Certain Points We Touch, which I read recently, played similarly fast and loose with the conventional rules of punctuation but it felt right for the book, and its rejection of binary and heteronormative spaces. In this case I felt like a bit like that Terry Pratchett quote “he knew it was very symbolic but couldn’t remember what it was symbolic of. Maybe it was just symbolic all by itself.”

In any case, a powerful, complicated, intriguing book. Well worth some of your dollerpounds.

[daniella ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

literally NOTHING happened but i enjoyed it. love me some 'sad girl in her twenties' book 🥰

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus)]

DNF 30%

Imogen Crimp is a clearly talented writer. Beside the predictable lack of quotation marks, her prose is certainly polished and there were many razor-sharp observations that caught my eye. It saddens me then that the story she choose to tell, well, it's a rather tired one. We have a milquetoast protagonist in her twenties who feels remote and vague. Anna allegedly wants to be an opera singer but she seemed very much to be going through the motions...her passion and drive for singing didn't really come through. She meets an older man who is cold and kind of closed-off but there is something alluring about him that supposedly makes Anna feel things. The two begin seeing each other in a casual way but it's quite clear that the man's behaviour will eventually escalate (gaslighting/possessiveness/emotional abuse etc...). Maybe if I hadn't read Promising Young Women I would have been more patient towards this story but ugh, I've reached the 30% and I'm bored. This reads like an amalgamation of other novels following directionless young women, specifically, Happy Hour, Exciting Times, and Acts of Desperation. Similarly to Happy Hour this novel presents us with that clichéd friendship dynamic: our narrator is the more giving one whereas her friend is "louder" and mean (in this instance she shows pleasure at our protagonist's hardships). Their landlords are caricatures that would have been more suited to a show like Fleabag which went at odds with the Sally Rooney-esque tone of the narrative. I am also tired of protagonists like Anna who will present themselves as so disadvantaged when they aren't. Anna isn't wealthy like the other ppl attending her prestigious conservatory but she's still white and conventionally attractive. Don't tell me now that those things don't work in her favour when she's auditioning. I wanted the narrative to expand more on her career and her relationship to art, music, etc. than her "toxic" relationship with that man. But no, we just have scenes of her being kind of passive in a way that will later inevitably make us (and her) question or revaluate her role in this "toxic" romance.
I hope that Crimp's next novel will tell a more original story.

[Anna Avian · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book focuses on the sexual relationship between a twenty-something year old woman who is financially struggling, doesn't seem to fit anywhere and an older, richer white man. The story hinges on a very predictable kind of false romance, dependency, desperation, and the struggle to succeed. And while the characters were well written the story dragged and was quite predictable from the very start.
I personally found the lack of quotation marks very irritating.

[Emily Matthys · Rating 5 out of 5]

And yet, my bleeding heart.

This one is tough. It’s dense. It’s solid on which to chew.

A Very Nice Girl is the story of love and loss, but mostly of the in between. The hard lines. The muddied median. The toughest meat.

It is what every small, infinitesimal rejection shrouded in silent phones and empty nights and forgotten importances feels like when it sits on your chest. This is cold air in your lungs. This is pain.

I had so many strong emotions throughout this novel. I wanted to slap Anna while simultaneously wrapping her in my arms. I wanted to shake her and loosen the stupidity, rattle out the foolishness, break the bonds of nothingness Max offered. And Max. Oh, I love him and then I hated him, but mostly I just found him incredibly and undeniably typical. His desperate attempts at aloofness and superiority only served to show his true insecurities and flaws.

I’m not sure how I wanted it to end, but it ended perfectly all the same.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at 30%. The book dragged so much. Perhaps it was the wordy language, or the boring storyline. I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately it was not for me.

It’s the story of Anna, an insecure girl who doesn’t fit it. She desperately tries to please her wealthy older boyfriend, despite all the red flags that he is a condescending, sarcastic, jerk who doesn’t deserve her. Anna must decide whether she will concentrate on her dreams of becoming an opera singer, or conform to the ideals and demands of those around her.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc.

[erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

like sex and the city but manipulative

[John Gilbert · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at around 15%.

I didn't find Anna a particularly nice girl or even particularly interesting. A young woman in her early 20's studying opera in London and living with her friend Laurie in poor accomodation, sings jazz at a bar Laurie works at and meets older Luke, who is far better off financially and they start a relationship.

I found nothing endearing or particularly interesting about any of them or their situations. It may have come later, but I was not interested.

Another quibble, writers who do not use quotation marks must have the skill to do so or it just does not work, Ms Crimp certainly does not have the writing skills to write this way.

[Letitia | Bookshelfbyla · Rating 2 out of 5]

this was honestly torture. i deserve a prize for not DNF’ing it. I told myself maybe the ending would make it worth it. It wasn’t.

I’m so grateful I rented it from the library and didn’t spend money on it. But my time… that, I will never get back.

Not all stories need to have major character development or a transformative plot but my LORD this was pointless!!! If I can zone out for two pages and not be concerned I missed anything important, that is a red flag 🚩 which by the way the character missed consistently throughout the story. I understand that she is somewhat an unreliable narrator which honestly only pours more salt on this wound.

It’s one thing to be someone who is spineless and revolves their life around men. people can do whatever they please (just stay far away from me). But it’s another to be forced along for the painful ride. This book was told entirely in the first person and boy, was it maddening being stuck in her head.

I hoped she’d wake up & grow a backbone but she never did. I get the rise in popularity of the trope ‘of the 20-something’s who are insecure, men obsessed, figuring out their lives, blah blah blah’ but this is another level.

unfortunately for me, she is exactly the type of person I dislike. She is exactly why I hate the adjective nice to describe people. What can I do with nice? If someone calls me nice I honestly find it insulting. Nice people are annoying and tend to have no personality, just like the main character who I honestly struggled to remember her name several times during the book.

Lastly, I still don’t understand their attraction to each other and I spent the entire book searching for reasons that were never found. I’m grateful this journey is over. Good riddance. I will now have PTSD for anyone named Anna or Max

[Aoife Cassidy McM · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this book was a colour, it would be beige.

Anna is a talented opera singer, studying at a conservatoire in London, with a promising career ahead of her. She meets Max, fourteen years her senior, and thus begins what might be defined as a toxic relationship.

The relationship waxes and wanes, leaving the reader to speculate if he’s gaslighting her, or if Anna is too emotionally immature and insecure to conduct a relationship with Max. She’s an unreliable, unknowable narrator, and the lack of any tension and any intrigue, and the flat tone in which the book is written, meant that this reader lost all interest in finding out - though there is a resolution at the end.

The power dynamic is Sally Rooney-esque (man is a bit of a pr*ck (or is he?), woman is submissive, milksop, lacking a backbone), and the story is very much in the vein of Rooney’s books but without the taut writing and perfect pacing. The pacing was very off here. Though not a particularly long book, I trudged through it; it could do with being sharpened.

The conservatoire angle had the potential to be really interesting but it fell flat, soaked as it was in the protagonist’s self-pity. Her supposed passion for singing never really rang true.

A book that might be enjoyed more by a younger reader? I think I’m over this subgenre. 2.5/5 ⭐️

*A Very Nice Girl by Imogen Crimp will be published on 3 February 2022. Many thanks to @netgalley and the publishers @bloomsburypublishing for the advance digital copy. As always, this is an honest review.*

[persephone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I genuinely enjoyed reading this book, despite not believing I would. The cover of the book says, ‘Sally Rooney meets Sweetbitter.’ As I’m not a major fan of Sally Rooney’s works and have yet to read Sweetbitter, I did not have high expectations.

Anna is a young opera singer who’s financially struggling when she meets Max: an older, wealthier, married to be divorced, man who frequently comes across as unpredictable and cold. Anna’s devotion to achieving her dream of becoming an opera singer alters when she meets Max. She quickly becomes infatuated with him to the point where she deliberately starts missing classes to be with him.

Anna grapples with anxiety and self-doubt throughout the novel, both concerning her aspirations and her relationship with Max. He takes her to fancy dinners, and after quitting her job, Max starts giving her envelopes filled with cash. Anna eventually finds herself struggling to fit into Max’s world, a world where she does not belong.

I’ll admit, the plot is quite predictable: a young, vulnerable woman struggling in the big city with big dreams meets an older, wealthy man. He’s rich—she’s not—and from the beginning, it’s clear their relationship will be a rollercoaster and mostly one-sided.

I understand why this book is disliked. Both of its characters are flawed, convoluted, and occasionally annoying. One thing I did not like about A Very Nice Girl is the absence of quotation marks. Did not get it when I read Normal People, and I don’t get it now either. I probably never will.

I don’t know if I’m too naïve, or if I simply have a penchant for reading about complex, challenging relationships, but I liked this book. I might re-read it in the future.

[Claire Fuller]

In A Very Nice Girl, Imogen Crimp explores complicated relationships, the creative life, and the challenges of living in London in your twenties, with precision and subtlety. Inspired by Jean Rhys's Voyage in the Dark, in this novel Anna is training to be an opera singer and taking jobs in bars to pay her way when she meets financier, Max who is fourteen years older than her. Anna struggles to juggle it all while falling for Max, who is elusive and secretive. Crimp could easily let this play out as a gaslighting story but it's more subtle than that, and I enjoyed it all the more for the way the author lets things very slowly unravel. Touching on feminism, power, finances, and the pleasures and dangers of a new relationship, this book is an assured debut.

[Spadge Nunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ooft. This book is very close to perfection for me. It’s deep, it feels real, its characters are flawed and relatable and heart-twinging, the writing is stunning and the plot keeps you guessing the entire time. I already miss it now that I’ve finished it.

Anna is used to speaking with many men doing what she does - singing evening jazz at a hotel bar. But Max’s cold enticing conversation hits her differently. The combination of deep curiosity and unexpected addiction is so real and alluring to read. Max is a frustratingly closed book - it keeps you guessing (and worrying) about what he’s hiding - as Anna falls harder and harder in love.

Anna’s other relationships are just as brilliant to peer into. She’s very close with her blunt best friend who she shares a room (and bed) with, she has an exhausting relationship with her parents and her singer friends are competitive more than supportive. It all makes for truly great reading.

Favourite quote:

“…he spread his fingers out on my stomach, round my neck, on the insides of my thighs - his hands on me were erasure, wiping my skin clean, and soon my mind was dark and my body empty, only the parts he was touching lit up.”

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc. A Very Nice Girl will be available from 3rd February 2022.

[Melanie Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

A VERY NICE GIRL is an enormously enjoyable read. I see from the blurb that the author is described as a major 'new' talent. That Imogen Crimp is talented is beyond dispute - but the 'new' part surprised me in that this is such an accomplished piece of work. I would have assumed that whoever wrote this had several titles under their belt.

There are so many things to love about A VERY NICE GIRL it feels almost disingenuous trying to point them out when what I really want to say is make sure you get your hands on a copy and see for yourself. You’ll be engulfed and delighted as perfect sentences roll out one after the other, for pages and chapters and sections.

The storyline (young woman comes to make it in London and falls for older man - is he all he seems or not?) feels sparkling and new in Ms Crimp's hands. In part, this is down to the eviscerating honesty, surprising wisdom, and endless wit on display here. The characterisation is breathtaking. I kept trying to work out what was making this tick along beautifully and at one point it occurred to me that a lot of the conflict in play is simply down to the fact that everyone is acting their age. This might sound like a simple point but the nature of ages-stages in life underpins the entire piece and it struck me that Ms Crimp quite simply nails it.

Something else that is exquisitely handled is the setting – a conservatoire of music – where the central character, Anna is studying. Anna is a soprano who spends her days in the world or opera and (some) of her nights crooning out jazz. Not knowing anything about what it feels like to be a singer – let alone an opera singer – I was completely enthralled with Anna’s inner world and her observations on what it takes to fulfil her art.

I fully expect that A VERY NICE GIRL will be on all the best prize lists this year. You just watch.

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for letting me see an advance copy of this novel.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 1 out of 5]

... and it was impossible to say which of these women, if any, she was. Laurie said then that she'd find out if he'd really gone to New York. She'd find out definitively. She called his office and asked to speak to him, but he wasn't available, they said. She encouraged me to to analyse him. Lying wasn't his only character flaw, after all. Perhaps not even his worst. He'd undermined me. Diminished me. Belittled what I did.

Every page is written like this: monotone, flat, indirect speech ('she told me that...', 'he said that...') rather than dialogue, everything told rather than dramatised and internal thought merging into, and indistinguishable from, external conversation. We're completely in Anna's head and it's a dull place for me to be. Very sub-Sally Rooney but without the interest, this tells an over-familiar story of a twenty-something young woman feeling disaffected and at odds with the world and falling into a needy and possibly toxic relationship with an older man.

I found it hard to engage with Anna and her constant self-pity: she's a talented opera singer studying at a prestigious conservatoire in London yet she shows little passion for music. The whiny tone about feeling disadvantaged (why?), not having much money (um, yes, she's a student - and in London there are plenty of free/cheap things to do), her neediness and dependency on male approval all feel like knee-jerk reactions to a certain type of book rather than stemming authentically from her character and situation. There is real potential in the opera background but this never really comes to fruition despite some vague gestures towards aligning Anna with opera heroines. Not witty or sharp, acutely dull.

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Lydia Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I didn't know what to expect, but as soon as I read the first page I was hooked. Imogen Crimp is a great writer. I could picture the characters and scenes. Anna is training to be an opera singer and taking jobs in bars to pay her way when she meets financier, Max who is fourteen years older than her. Anna struggles to juggle it all while falling for Max, who is elusive and secretive. Imogen Crimp explores complicated relationships, the creative life, and the challenges of living in London in your twenties, with precision and subtlety. I enjoyed it all the more for the way the author lets things slowly unravel. Touching on feminism, power, finances, and the pleasures and dangers of a new relationship. Highly recommend. Waiting for your next great book.

[QUYNH NGUYEN · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars. It would be a five or closer to a five if the ending didn’t break my tiny little heart.
Review to come I have thoughts

[Jaclyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m struggling to connect with so many 2022 international fiction debuts it seems. I’m definitely seeing a trend of novels about young artistic women in their 20s falling for emotionally abusive, successful and wealthy older men written in a completely detached style and I hate it. Max’s cruelty here was painful to read and made for a flat, depressing reading experience. Maybe I’m too old for this, maybe the cruelty is the point, maybe joy is undervalued in fiction. The only redeeming factor in this novel was the opera (Anna is training as an opera singer). Meg Mason who I adore and whose opinion I trust blurbed it as SWEETBITTER meets NORMAL PEOPLE and gosh how I wish it had read like that to me. I really need a winner – what 2022 novels have you ADORED?

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

omg

this is just incredible

[Moony Eliver · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've gotta stop reading books like this. And I wish I could thoroughly explain that sentence. But I saw it in a 'best of 2022' article, and I think I need to run in the other direction of those lists, generally speaking. I'm not really clicking with what I'm reading from them. They're well written, but lately I've just found them... unsatisfying, somehow. I know that's vague but I'm ready to move on. 😂

2.75 stars

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this has been done before. A familiar read, nothing earth shattering.

[nelly :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

theres nothing i love more than reading about complicated relationships <333 what a luvli book - just not crazy about the ending

[anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

tw: toxic relationship, gaslighting, dubious consent, mention past attempted suicide

it’s a hard book to judge. on one hand, there are things i very much wish have happened (if this was a story unfolding in real life), on the other hand, there are literary devices employed here that i find interesting & well executed.

i do wish anna had more figurative meat on her bones, but i also appreciate how the author's chosen to portray her. that we never really see her on her own, always in reaction to someone else. even when she’s describing her childhood, when she’s with a teacher focused solely on her growth - she puts on a persona she assumes people want to see. it makes perfect sense for this kind of story. (and it makes the title strikingly accurate. anna will make anything to appeal to people, of course she's very nice.)

i do wish max got what he deserved, but at the same time he's a great depiction of a manipulative toxic misogynistic piece of shit. it’s interesting to see the way he drains anna's energy, the way he knows exactly what to say and how to act to make her feel small and worthless, and depended on him. everything anna does, max turns into a child’s play. if she feels vulnerable, she’s easier to manipulate, it's easier to get out of her (body) what he wants at any given moment. and the most interesting part of this whole show, is that the book leaves it up to us, as readers, to decide: does he do all those things deliberately or is he just an asshole?

(the way the book makes his actions and motivations a literal topic of conversation between anna and her friend might have been more smooth and natural, but still.)

so yes, everyone is slightly one-dimensional and the main character is sort of a blank page, and the story itself is as old as the world, but the devil's in the details, and those are gorgeous.

[Erlesenes.Zerlesenes [Berit] · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ein Satz mit x: das war wohl nix.
Oder: eines der unfeministischsten feministischen Bücher in 2022.

In einem Interview mit dem Verlagsteam von Hanser sagt die Debüt-Autorin, sie habe über weiblichen Ehrgeiz, Macht, Geld Sex und Begehren schreiben wollen.
Was im ersten Moment nach einer empowernden, spannenden Prämisse klingt, scheitert an einer Protagonistin, die aufgrund ihres ständigen Gejammers (Poor little white girl) und ihrer über knapp 500 Seiten andauernden Misogynie einfach keine Sympathiepunkte zu sammeln vermag.
Wenn sie sich nicht gerade darüber beschwert, dass sie neben ihrer Ausbildung zur Opernsängerin tatsächlich auch noch arbeiten gehen muss, urteilt sie über ihre Londoner Mitbewohner*innen, die jeweils auf die falsche Art feministisch zu sein scheinen. So sind Feministinnen bspw nicht ernstzunehmen, sobald sie sich für das eigene Wohlbefinden die Körperbehaarung entfernen lassen (das machen sie doch eh für die Männer! - So ist sich Protagonistin Anna sicher). Fatshaming anderer Opernsängerinnen findet zwischendrin auch noch Platz - manchmal fragten meine Buddyreadpartnerin und ich uns, ob die Autorin ihre Prota absichtlich so gestaltet hat oder unwissentlich diverse No Gos reproduziert hat. Keine Ahnung, was an dieser Stelle schlimmer wäre?!

Dass Imogen Crimp echt schreiben kann, dass der gaslightende Freund von Anna sehr gut ausgeschrieben wurde und dass der deutsche Text dank Übersetzerin Margarita Ruppel und Verlagsteam gegendert ist, konnte dann irgendwie auch nichts mehr retten.
Der Roman scheitert tatsächlich an den Themen, die die Autorin vermeintlich anprangern wollte, die aber am Ende nicht zufriedenstellend ins richtige (also reflektierend-kritische) Licht gerückt werden.

[The Grim Reader Podcast · Rating 3 out of 5]

A coming of age story that tackles navigating a career, and relationships. I enjoyed many things in this book, with some razor-sharp analysis on performance careers, feminism, and toxic relationships.

Anna is a young opera singer studying at a prestigious opera school. She is struggling financially, working as a jazz singer in a hotel bar while living in below standard accommodation. While at work she meets Max, an older man who captures her attention. Throughout the book, Anna is trying to piece together who Max is as a person. He is a man who doesn’t talk about himself and does not share personal details with Anna unless he has to. It’s hard to call what Anna and Max have a relationship. Anna is naïve and Max takes advantage of that. Sections of this book were difficult to read due to Max’s controlling behaviour and how he gaslights and manipulates her into making decisions about her life. We watch as Anna becomes anxious and wrought with self-doubt as the book progresses.

As a musician, the sections of the book that feature her singing are relatable. We all have high hopes when we begin college, and the sudden vulnerability that Anna feels when starting at her conservatoire is familiar for me. As Max’s control over her strengthens, it is hard to read how Anna’s voice becomes a fearful thing for her. Her voice is her instrument, and it was a powerful choice to display his effect in that way.

Rebecca, 1/3 of The Grim Readers

Thank you to Netgalley, and to Bloomsbury Publishing for the copy of this book.

[ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

broke and neurotic women in their 20's who are attached to (kinda) married men, you will always be famous!

but no srsly, i liked this one! the dynamic between max and anna is very interesting. he unintentionally makes her behave a certain way, and she can't help but inhabit those roles based on what she thinks people perceive her as. she plays her roles so well— friend, daughter, significant other— that she starts to lose sight of her real self. i was struck by the loneliness of her character and her deep need for human connection. it's just so good! but not everyone will get it, i know, so i wouldn't recommend this to a lot of people.

oh, and i learned a lot about opera here. i never thought i'd be interested in it, but this book made me watch a few operas and listen to some arias. i liked them!

[Anika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die junge Opernstudentin Anna schlägt sich durchs Leben, bis sie älteren, wohlhabenden Max kennenlernt und eine Affäre mit ihm beginnt. Beim Versuch, ihm möglichst alles recht zu machen, fängt sie an, sich und ihre eigenen Bedürfnisse zu vernachlässigen. Die Protagonistin/Erzählerin lässt kaum einen Zweifel an ihrer Unzuverlässigkeit, die Differenzen zwischen der eigentlichen Handlung und ihrer Wahrnehmung von derselbigen sowie die Spannung des stetig sinkenden Erfolgs sorgen für ein unterhaltsames Lesevergnügen mit Tiefgang.

Mehr zum Buch in Folge 193: Weird Flex, but Okay @ Papierstau Podcast.