Big Swiss

This is a weird one- which is of course, the point. This is absurdist realism- messy female protagonists behaving in strange ways and existing in bizarre situations. I did not love this book as so many else have. I liked certain parts of it. Big segments are therapy notes and I found that writing to be crisp and funny and excellent. I did not care about the main character even though I could tell she was living out a flawed existence due to deeply repressed trauma. Part of the dark comedy of this book is that she works in the wellness culture field and yet is emotionally unwell. Her internal monologues were bizarre and even gross at some times, also often insensitive. She was rather a sad, even pathetic character. Overall, none of the characters here act in normal, expected ways and several don't seem particularly sane. If you like absurdist realities, give this one a go. The writing is strong, I just didn't love the story.

For about the first half of this book, I thought it was funny, but as the story progressed, I changed my mind. This is not the comic novel the blurbs want you to think it is. Greta is on the run from some painful truths about her life, which is how she ends up in a little Hudson Valley tourist town, transcribing recorded coaching sessions for a self annointed sex and relationship coach. She is captivated by the voice and “aura” of one of the coaching clients, a woman she calls Big Swiss. When she meets Big Swiss in person by accident, she lies about her name and occupation, which presents problems as they become romantically and sexually entangled.

The town of Hudson reminds me of my college town in Massachusetts, with its “town vs. gown” dynamic, abundance of suspect people in the “healing” business, and large population of people who are there for a short time and then leave forever (students or tourists). Partly because of that, and partly because the precarious, patched together life that Greta is living seems more like a college student's than a woman in her 40's, I kept being surprised at references to Greta's age.

Unsurprisingly, things don't go well for Greta, and Greta makes them worse for herself before the novel is over. The aspects of the book that seemed funny at the beginning seem much more like sad bravado by the end. If I look at the book this way, without expecting it to be funny, I like certain aspects of it much more. The character of Sabine, who is absent for much of the action, is much wiser than she seems at first. I also appreciated the character of the beehive, which inhabits the old farmhouse where Greta and Sabine live.

dude. i loved this book so much. i love greta. i love big swiss. i love the donks. even though i wasn't happy with the ending, since i like things all tied up nice and neat, i find it very fitting for the story. i really do wish to know what happens in the future, or what happened to big swiss. so many questions that are probably best left unanswered. ellington and pantaloon forever!

read for the midnight society bookclub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV_Ff...

this is a pretty well liked book at least by my friends and i wanted to love it and instead i disliked it so much that it boarders on hate 😭 i do think this book sparks interesting discussions which i did enjoy. i was a guest co-host for the midnight society bookclub and i loved doing that liveshow but almost everything about this book i didn't like. i feel like this book tried to discuss so much and literally did not say anything about any of it. i hated the writing (except the transcript portions) because it was literally so try-hard. the author was trying to be quirky and different and i could tell. i also didn't like the characters and even though the author tried to make them three dimensional they still were flat to me. there is some also questionable rep in this like the bisexual rep i don't think was necessarily harmful but it wasn't good either. i have also heard there is some japanese racism at the beginning of this which i didn't pick up on personally but i would look at own voices reviews to understand that better and the effects of it. lastly the only harmful bit in this book for me was that there is a neglectful, suicidal character in this book who is also bipolar. i have bipolar II and honestly almost all the rep we get is negative and this character could have had all the same characteristics but not be bipolar just because it does reflect negatively on the community.

I knew about 50 pages into this book that my reading year was going to be bad because unfortunately the first book I finished (this one) was probably going to be the best book I read all year. I loved it, I thought it was genuinely hilarious and had some very poignant things to say about grief, trauma, and love. I didn't love the ending, I thought it was a little abrupt but I understand that that was definitely the point. But overall really great read, it's definitely being added to my list of favorites. 

Eccentric women dealing with trauma. One messy and unhinged, the other blunt and stoic. And yet somehow they fall into a relationship.

This was wonderfully entertaining, funny and sexy. But I also have to agree, that the ending was somehow anticlimactic.

Why, Om, why - would you hire a local transcriber, and not one that lives far far away, from all your messed up clients?

Now I just have to imagine that Arnold Schwarzenegger also takes comfort from listening to his two miniature donkeys chewing.

3.5 ⭐️ rounded up - conflicted bc i hated this but also loved it so im not feeling confident in my rating. i started this book in the middle of a reading frenzy & then got in a slump so it took me a while to get thru. the writing & characters are well done but i'm also not really rooting for any of them & i was left with a weird uncomfortableness the whole time i was reading it, felt like a fever dream. so much happened but the writing style is so nonchalant that it felt like nothing was happening at the same time

This was a pleasant surprise! I knew nothing about it going in, and picked it up on a whim while looking for an audiobook with a narrator I could tolerate. The narration is fantastic and the different voice actors for different characters made it come alive that much more.

I can't quite put my finger on why I loved this book so much. It's not my normal type of book, and I'm not sure how to explain it. It's about Greta, a transcriber for Om, a sex coach, who becomes infatuated with one of Om's clients who she calls Big Swiss. As the transcriber she gets to hear all Big Swiss' secrets, and soon Greta meets Big Swiss at the dog park, and in a panic introduces herself with a fake name. What ensues is a quirky, funny, sad, and downright odd story. It is rare that I laugh out loud at a book. Greta is definitely an unhinged mess, yet still manages to be endearing and emotional. Very excited for the TV adaptation!

I just loved this chaotic mess of a book with its queer, goblin era protagonist. Greta is 45 and living in what she describes as the Fight Club house with comfy furniture. She's just an absolute wreck, a complete outsider in this trendy little hipster community where people were “better looking than average and dressed like boutique farmers.” Greta becomes a transcriptionist for the area's lone sex therapist — because of course. This leads to an aural obsession with one of the therapist's clients she names “Big Swiss” in her head.

When she meets “Big Swiss” in person, Greta finds out that Flavia (her real name) is a gynaecologist. Greta opens with “You must get this a lot, but would you mind taking a quick look at this thing on my labia?” Naturally she does not mention that she's been privy to Flavia's sexual therapy sessions. Did I mention Greta is just a huge chaos monkey? The two together make for the most unhinged lesbian relationship.

That chaos is hiding some serious trauma and this book comes with all the trigger warnings. While Big Swiss feels nothing but contempt for what she call “trauma people” and blithely ignores her past horrors, Greta is quietly writing long letters to hers.

This is going to be one of those novels that will do even better onscreen - this thing is made to be adapted and I can't wait to see what Jodie Comer does with the property.