I found this rather uncomfortable reading (listening) as it's far more gossipy than I expected with little to no solid foundation for its assertions. Anolik is a Babitz fan and makes no bones about her bias - even when that means a bit of a character assassination of Didion.

Some of the writing plays into this dynamic with a breathy 'dear reader' address throughout. I ended up feeling like I was in a teenage soap opera (Gossip Girl?) which didn't inspire me with confidence in the portraits offered.

I first encountered Joan Didion's writing in my early twenties, where I devoured The White Album and Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I put her away for years after that until The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights arrived on the scene and she knocked me for six in a different way. I had always sensed a fierce edge to her writing, a stepping back from rather than a towards approach. It was consolidated by the documentary, The Centre Will Not Hold, where her hawkish instinct for a story above everything else came across as curiously chilling.

When this book was announced I was desperate to read about Joan rather than read Joan and Anolik is brilliant at writing about Joan. I had never heard of Eve Babitz before this, but that will be rectified after devouring this. It's gossipy, it's scholarly, it's thoughtful and it's really entertaining. I loved it.

Anolik is a great narrator of her own work and I enjoyed listening to her as much as I enjoyed the content.

I finally finished the damned book. Now I should explain, it’s of no fault of the book it’s entirely me. But that last 10% lasted 2 days 🤣

I can completely understand why the title seems to be so divisive, for me personally I was in it for the gossip, and it delivered. I think where it falls down is that the author is heavily (and unabashedly) biased towards Eve Babitz, that bothered me none, but I can see the title doesn’t quite fit.

I came for tea, it was hot, it was sweet it was spilling all over the floor!

Really enjoyed it. I think the author made a wise choice to narrate herself, I don’t know that anyone else could’ve made it work.

My gratitude to NetGalley and W F Howes LTD for the opportunity to review this title 🎧

What a strange book. Supposedly a biography about the friendship between Didion and Babitz, it feels more like a vehicle for the author to drive home her own curious conclusions about…well, almost everything. The story centres on the discovery of a box of letters written by Babitz to Didion. They were discovered after Babitz died and were allegedly the basis of a friendship between these two rather extra women, Except they weren’t actually sent and that reveal doesn’t come until well into the story, so the whole preceding narrative is based on a false and misleading premise.

Lili Anolik is the narrator in the audio version I listened to and she delivers the story well. But I’m left with the rather uncomfortable feeling that the whole exercise is rather egotistic. Anolik has titillated with snippets of gossip about both. She declares an undying love for Babitz, to the point of obsessional stalking and the narrative is swayed very much in favour of Babitz and against Didion. It’s, at times, a disturbing insight, but I’m left not knowing what’s true or trustworthy. The prose is so overblown; Anolik is trying to be too clever by half and it diminishes the book and the content. Did I enjoy it? No. I felt like someone spectating something rather unsavoury through a peephole. Some details are best left unsaid and so much is Anolik’s conjecture with no basis in fact. The fact that Dunne, Didion’s husband, went to a gay club and stared at a crotch doesn’t make him gay as she asserts. It’s a weird mish mash of facts about a friendship which I doubt existed. I don’t believe Babitz or Didion woukd have endorsed the content in any way.