A Touch of Jen

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A Touch of Jen is hipster noir, acerbic social parable and slasher gore-fest: as if Patricia Highsmith, Chris Kraus, and Ann Quin all crashed a Hamptons beach party, and John Carpenter dropped in with some weed.

Remy and Alicia are mostly unlikeable yet somehow, against the odds, charming – you wouldn’t want to know them, but reading about them is pretty fun. She’s that girl that Remy used to work with (two years and seven months ago), who now Remy only sees through social media. Horus, a very easy-going, non-judgmental fellow, is too laid back for Remy’s taste, and Remy perceives Horus’s over-zealous friendliness as disingenuous.In fact, I deprived myself of so many nutrients during my developmental years that my mom thinks my brain was permanently damaged!

At the same time they are incredibly isolated from others–lonely though they never admit it–, they make sport of judging and excluding others, and even each other; often, Remy is cruel to Alicia, noticing and occasionally remarking on her unsightly features and annoying qualities. While they may have once helped with a few practical and timeless guidelines (shout-out to journaling for being the MVP of my mental health), there is never a single way to become the best version of yourself.Most of my enjoyment that came out of reading this novel was from the sheer surprise that it provided me, and I want you all to go in blind too. His previous analysis of social interactions transforms into a different type of interpretation, this time, interpreting coincidences and others’ words and actions as “signifiers” trying to point him towards his “consummate result,” or his fate. I predicted the ending, because it was the ending that made sense, what I didn't predict was the absolutely insane way Beth Morgan got us there.