“They’re all assholes until one isn’t.”
Courtesy of Dey Street Books
Read Bottom Up by Neel Shah and Skye Chatham is a novel that takes readers through the journey of one New York couple's relationship, by looking at their emails and text messages. We read exchanges between the couple, Elliot and Madeline, and between both Elliot and Madeline and their best friends. Being two single, straight women in their twenties living and dating in New York City, we decided to talk about which aspects of the book rang most true to our experiences.
Courtesy of Nina Cosford for Dey Street Books
Krystie Lee Yandoli: I really enjoyed every minute of reading Read Bottom Up because it felt like someone had hacked into all of my personal information and wrote a book about my life. I wrote this in an email to someone about the book and it's true for me: it's nice to be able to see bits and pieces of yourself mirrored in literature; it's helpful to feel not so alone, especially in something as crazy as the NYC dating scene. What did you think about the format?
Julia Pugachevsky: Same! I definitely always feel the temptation to screencap everything and give my friends a play-by-play of my love life. I think there's a fine line though between sharing funny anecdotes and frantically begging your BFF to "decode" everything.
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