Impossible Views of the World (Ives) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
[An] intricate, darkly funny debut…There is so much going on in this novel, so many sharp observations packed into sentences as sensual and jarring as a Mardi Gras parade, that it bears a second look.… Ives, an accomplished poet, infuses even mundane actions with startling imagery.… Read this book on whichever level you choose: you woman coming unglued, art world mystery or museum-based episode of The Office, replete with petty workplace drama, aged PCs and the occasional colleague marching "up and down the hall, loudly, in quest of a staple remover." It’s a smart novel brimming with ideas about love, art, personal agency, a lack thereof.
Susan Coll - New York Times Book Review


Cool and bracing…a perfect summer pleasure.… An accomplished poet, Ives also knows how to delight sentence by sentence, with turns of phrase that cry to be underlined or Tweeted.… Part send-up of the Manhattan art world, part elaborate literary mystery, the novel is bound together by a voice that is at turns deadpan and warm, shot through with a crisp irony that makes it tempting to declare it the literary equivalent of an Alex Katz painting.… It’s a singular work, worthy of a place in any world-class collection.
Vogue.com


Ives maximizes her story’s humor with subtlety…. She also isn’t afraid to make her heroine unlikable, which works in the novel’s favor. Ives’s prose and storytelling feel deliberately obtuse at times…but the result is an odd and thoroughly satisfying novel.
Publishers Weekly


An original debut ringing with smart prose, engaging humor and cultivated taste…Ives’ genius is apparent in the intricate way she weaves ironic confession, romantic comedy and artful treatise with explorations into the historic art world…Full of intelligence and imagination, this relatable literary mystery will charm even the most apprentice art devotee.
BookPage


Stella is…smart, with an equal tendency toward snark and introspection…. The novel sends up the museum world, with pretentious art folks courting corporate dollars and the usual office politics, but maintains a sense of something larger, even magical, working in the background.
Booklist


(Starred review.) Ives' writing derives much of its humor from a combination of high and low—arch formulations and mini-disquisitions studded with cussing, sex, and jokes about Reddit.… A diversion and a pleasure, this novel leaves you feeling smarter and hipper than you were before.
Kirkus Reviews