Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Indestructible Object, by Mary McCoy

Right after graduation, Lee gets hit with a series of set-backs:  her boyfriend and podcast co-host breaks up with her on their last episode, she loses her job as a sound engineer at the local coffee shop, and her parents announce they are separating.  To sort this out, Lee starts up a new podcast called Objects of Destruction.  While developing her first episode, she stumbles across an old videotape that gives her insight on the roots of her parents' unhappiness and helps her understand her own problems.  The story is made more complicated by Lee's romantic wanderings as she tries to sort out if she wants to be back with her old boyfriend or to hook up with Risa the cute girl at the bookstore who (along with her old family friend Max) is helping her work on Objects.

In sum, the novel is a quirky trip through hip Memphis with a pastiche of offbeat artists and musicians.  Responsible adults are few and far between and the kids are free to do whatever they want.  This sets up an original story with interesting characters, but the characters are largely the same -- artistic kids with endless free time and adults with no responsibilities.  They all seemed adrift and I found them hard to relate to.  There's a significant attempt at deep meaning in the end, but I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to get from it.

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