Book Chatter

Big Swiss
By Jen Beagin
Scribner, August 2023, 352 pp.

The Short of It:

What a fun, darkly humorous book.

The Rest of It:

Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss.

Transcribing sex therapy sessions is already unusual work, but everything shifts the moment Greta recognizes a familiar voice in the park. Standing right in front of her is the woman she has only known through transcripts, the one she has privately dubbed Big Swiss. Seeing her in real life is startling. She is tall, poised, and quietly commanding. Greta realizes she knows intimate details about this woman’s life, yet the urge to know more only deepens.

What begins as curiosity turns into something far more consuming. Greta’s fascination with Big Swiss, whose real name is Flavia, grows intense and increasingly risky. Flavia is married, and Greta is painfully aware of that marriage through the therapy sessions she transcribes. Still, there is an undeniable pull between them. That tension is heightened by the shadow hanging over Flavia’s life, as she is being stalked by the person who once nearly killed her.

As their connection develops into something complicated and unconventional, Greta is forced to confront her own past. She carries deep guilt over her mother’s death, a burden she cannot seem to shake. Meanwhile, life in a small town offers little room for secrets. Everyone is entangled in everyone else’s business, especially when a sex therapist sits at the center, quietly collecting stories and asking probing questions that linger long after the sessions end.

Greta’s job pays the bills, but it also puts her in a morally precarious position. When the boundaries of confidentiality begin to blur, she faces a choice that could unravel everything. Even her eccentric, free-spirited roommate struggles to understand what is at stake.

This novel blends dark humor with an exploration of unconventional relationships. It moves through friendship, obsession, desire, and fear while asking difficult questions. What does it mean to give yourself fully to another person? Is it a loss of self, or a way of becoming whole?

Highly recommended.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

Lock In
By John Scalzi
Tor Science Fiction, 2015, 336pp.

The Short of It:

Interesting concept.

The Rest of It:

Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent – and nearly five million souls in the United States alone – the disease causes “Lock In”: Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge. ~ the publisher

I went into this book club pick completely blind, with no idea what to expect, and it ended up being exactly the kind of read I needed. It’s a little strange, a little unsettling, and perfectly suited to a mood-driven reading experience, which honestly feels essential these days.

What really hooked me was the central concept: a virus that leaves people fully conscious but unable to move, forcing them to live their lives through “threeps,” robotic, humanoid bodies that act as their physical stand-ins while their real bodies remain safely tucked away. It’s a fascinating idea, but the story quickly makes it clear that “safe” is relative. Those affected by the syndrome are being targeted, and what once seemed like a solution to a global crisis becomes a new kind of vulnerability. These people are still here, still aware, and still at risk.

The narrative follows police detectives, including one who has Haden’s, which adds a compelling layer to how the world and its biases are portrayed. Society has already started deciding what’s acceptable and what isn’t, and the lines get murkier as the story unfolds. The fact that “threeps” can be damaged or destroyed, often at great personal cost to their users, raises the stakes in a way that feels both practical and deeply human.

What starts as a straightforward murder investigation expands into something much bigger, blending speculative sci-fi with a grounded, procedural feel.

I’m always drawn to stories that explore where we might be headed when things start to fall apart, and this one hits that note without feeling too far removed from reality. Maybe a little too close, at times.

Overall, it’s an engaging, thought-provoking read, and I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone else in book club takes away from it.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

Chatting with friends about books and life…