The Paper Wasp Kindle Edition

Although some readers might find this book odd, disturbing or elusive, in my opinion Lauren Acampora’s fine writing and the compelling nature of a psychological case study led me to appreciate it on several levels.It’s a little creepy, I think the fascinating aspect of it is the trajectory of plausibility, throughout the first half I was still looking at an unreliable narrator and waiting for revelations of her actually still being home or maybe sequestered in an asylum.Accepting that her view of reality and manipulation of events was a solid thread, I then found the conclusion plausible, if a bit anticlimactic.It’s an interesting look at the fractured yet robust and powerful psychology of the artist in general and in particular of a woman who yearns for wholeness in a confusing and stratified world.

Abby, the narrator of Acampora's tightly wound, gorgeously told novel, is on a mission from page one and never veers from her sinister purpose: to become a great artist, even if it means destroying her best friend, a kind-hearted, naive Hollywood starlet. The novel snared me like a fishhook; weeks later, I'm still bleeding.

Like living inside someone else’s dream, you float through these lives. It is a fascinating journey. Bizarre and convoluted, irrational yet strangely comforting.

This is an unputdownable book filled with masterfully rendered suspense and subtle but ever-mounting secrets and betrayals. It’s an incisive look at ambition and obsession in women’s friendships, and Acampora spins the tale with a singular style and entirely distinctive descriptions, giving readers an intimate, almost voyeuristic look into Abby and Elise’s relationship. It’s a dark, delicious, page-turning treat!

Overall, I like the book but found it hard to follow. The wasp is an apt metaphor.

I wasn't able to get into the book. I kept trying to figure out whether she was hallucinating or it was real. Probably just wasn't my genre.

I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I read this. The characters had a complexity to them I enjoyed without being over the top. The ending kept me guessing and I liked the confidence of the main character in her decisions, satisfyingly messed up.

An amazing writer with a knack for language. This story haunted me and had me talking about it for days. Expect more great work from this author. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!

The two main protagonists of ‘The Paper Wasp’ are Elise as a rising Hollywood star who has escaped her upbringing in Mid-West America to live a glamorous celebrity life, and her school-day friend Abby who has remained yet dreams of Hollywood success. Abby works in a retail store but is an amateur artist producing story-boards and believing she has more talent as a film-maker than Elise as an actress. Neither character is likeable, and neither has a grip on the real world.Abby obsessively collects details of Elise from glossy fashion and tabloid publications but they live their own lives until meeting at a school reunion when Elise compliments her art and she invites Abby to Los Angeles. Here Abby becomes her confident and assistant but jealousy and ambition are concealed. Both seek the attention of a Hollywood guru and attempt to meet him at his creative establishment, the Rhizome (meaning a horizontal plant stem bearing both roots and shoots?) to further their careers.Between the first chapter with Abby aboard a plane to California and an epilogue shifting from dream to reality author Lauren Acampora uses eloquent language to present rather pretentious portrayals, but the story is unending – it goes nowhere apart from the predictable shift between Abby’s initial loneliness and Elise’s whirlwind existence. Abby is depicted as the dreamer who draws her dreams and prefers them to the real thing, and indeed she creates dreams which become truer than life. Meanwhile Elise is so wrapped in Hollywood glitter and her relationship with an actor that she fails to realise Abby’s treacherous intentions. And that’s it!

Brilliantly written, this piece of fiction documents the story of two school friends. Whilst Elise goes on to become a Hollywood star, artistic Abby has not moved or risen above that which she achieved when at school. Abby is socially less adept, ‘the other girls avoided me like a contagion’.The Paper Wasp is seen through the eyes of Abby. The syntax and vocabulary used by Acampora is sophisticated, descriptive and raw. She weaves her words sensuously and fantastically.Abby has terrific insight and she meets Elise again at a school reunion. There is a sexual chemistry between the girls and on a whim, Abby walks back into Elise’s life. She flies to LA to realise her own ambitions. Moving in with Elise, she becomes her best friend’s PA and is guided by the ‘Rhizome’, to extend her dreams, imagination and creativity. Whilst Elise is in the spotlight, Abby is in the background, yearning to find herself and her niche in the world.This is Hollywood - strangely fey and melting under the guise of friendship, drink and predatory advances. This novel portrays Hollywood as transient, an illusion and a dream.

On the face of it this is quite a straightforward tale about Abby and Elise. Abby has remained home at Michigan, living with her parents and following Elise's burgeoning movie career through magazine interviews and gossip columns. They used to be close friends but grew apart whilst still in school and with their 10 year reunion looming maybe it is time for Abby to shake of her self-imposed exile and rekindle the flames of friendship.I got the impression that we are supposed to sympathise with Abby, find her damaged psyche somehow sympathetic. For me she came across as not only deeply troubled but sociopathic; and that was before I got to any of the more worrying behavioural aspects of her story from when she lands in L.A.. I also found the dream sequences to be unsettling, particularly Abby's insistence that they were all somehow real and that the people in them were interacting with her in reality and not just her dream.Throw in an unhealthy obsession with a film maker, Auguste Perren, and his bizarre (probably Art House) films that is shared by both women and it does become a very odd story. When Elise introduces Abby at The Rhizome, a spa retreat created by Perren it becomes almost cult-like. Shades of Scientology with the meetings with your Guide at The Rhizome to be taken on a dream journey - all very bizarre.Neither of the main characters are particularly likeable or relatable. The nearest we get is Elise, at least you can understand that her self-absorbed vacuity is as much a part of the damage caused by her profession and the pressures of even a little peripheral fame. Ultimately though you can't help but feel that she is, as perceived through Abby's eyes, an empty vessel. The real winner in the book is the rugged California coastline which the author treats reverentially.The book takes some odd twists and turns but as the bulk of it is set in Hollywood you find yourself just going with it. That is until Abby reunites with her estranged sister and then things become completely non-sensical. I won't go in to detail here as that will spoil the ending of the book but I want to go on record on saying that it is medically ridiculous and made me glad I was almost at the end.The pacing is slow but necessarily so as the author is trying to give a sense of languid days rekindling a friendship that really both women are only paying homage to, never really regaining that childhood closeness. It is really about obsession and the lies we well ourselves to feed that obsession. From a psychological perspective it is an uncomfortable read with characters that I found it difficult to invest in or really understand, let alone like.An okay read but not one I would really recommend to others.THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED FROM THE PUBLISHERS.

This tells the story of Abby and her schoolfriend Elise, once they are grown up and trying to make their way in the world. Abby is getting nowhere, while Elise is a famous actress, and when Elise asks Abby to be her personal assistant, Abby thinks her life is going exactly how it was meant to. Both women have issues which mean their lives are going to go very differently though.There's lots of well written prose here and evocative descriptions, but there's a very basic problem for me, which is that neither of the main characters are remotely likeable or relatable - in fact they are both so downright odd, self-obsessed, delusional and dysfunctional that it's impossible to care about what happens to them or about their relationship. Since the main character is Abby, everything is filtered through her surreal and troubled viewpoint, and the pacing is really slow, with not much happening for large sections.I ended up skimming through a fair amount of the book, only to find that the plot becomes really quite ludicrous towards the end, making it impossible to stay engaged in the story. It's not often I feel so much frustration when trying to get through a story, and so much relief upon reaching the end! The author has talent with creating a world and describing it nicely, but the characterisation and plotting just didn't work for me.

Now in her late twenties, Abby Graven narrates. Ungainly and reclusive, she is subjected to unsettling dreams and fantasies - these finding their way into powerful drawings that unnerve. Memories dwell on the only one she could ever count as a friend - schoolmate Elise Van Dijk, who went onto stardom in Hollywood. Ten years later a School Reunion encounter has just caused that passion to be rekindled. Within days Abby has flown from MIchigan to California - determined to latch on to Elise and to make herself indispensable....Unnerving here is Abby's intensity, hers a mind clearly on the very edge. She does not seem part of the world as it is but on collision course with reality. The novel's title may puzzle but, once explained, justifies concern for those who come her way.A sharply observed telling. What now for Elise as she seeks continuing fame? Can she cope in a world where so much is meretricious? Is Abby really what she needs now? Arguably the most intriguing character is Paul - cameraman and a maker of kites. He has no time for Hollywood's obsession with fantasy, films made with one major aim - to bring the money rolling in. He wants his own films to be about real life - to open eyes and provoke thoughts, result of documentaries made in dangerous places.How many of those depicted here are scheduled for happy endings? Even readers most adept at predicting outcomes may be surprised by what happens to Abby.Accomplished writing most assuredly, but some may find this an uncomfortable read.