WhiskeyintheJar reviewed Slipstream by Madge Maril
Internal thoughts focus lit fic style
3 stars
I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review
It was already over. I just hadn’t known it.
Lilah has moved down to Texas from Washington D.C. to film a documentary paid for by a Formula 1 team about their drivers. She films with her bestfriend turned boyfriend Max and they're coming off doing an award winning doc about a congressman. Lilah knows nothing about Formula 1 and wants to do important film making, not a puff piece, but as someone diagnosed with ADHD and neurodivergent, she has let Max lead her in things she should like and how she should act. Her plan is to get down to Texas and convince him that they shouldn't do the film but instead he promptly breaks up with her and tells her he's kicking her out of the company that …
I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review
It was already over. I just hadn’t known it.
Lilah has moved down to Texas from Washington D.C. to film a documentary paid for by a Formula 1 team about their drivers. She films with her bestfriend turned boyfriend Max and they're coming off doing an award winning doc about a congressman. Lilah knows nothing about Formula 1 and wants to do important film making, not a puff piece, but as someone diagnosed with ADHD and neurodivergent, she has let Max lead her in things she should like and how she should act. Her plan is to get down to Texas and convince him that they shouldn't do the film but instead he promptly breaks up with her and tells her he's kicking her out of the company that has both their names on it. Fortunately, the driver Lilah was assigned to film, Arthur, has his own grievances and agenda. He'll help her get the doc tanked if she'll help him get his uncle to fire him off the team. The fake dating plan they come up with sounds great, until real feelings get involved.
The enemy of my enemy is a Formula 1 reserve driver trying to break his contract, as the saying goes.
I had just read a Formula 1 book and a very similar dynamic between the main characters a little before I read this and I think that may have lead to me not enjoying this as much. The plan Lilah and Max come up with never quite made sense to me, they're going to fake date but not so much that people can really realize and that is supposed to get his uncle to fire him and get them to trash the doc? Until the end when this plan comes into play, I just ignored it instead of trying to figure it out.
“You know what you remind me of? We used to feed this angry stray cat out in Rome. Micetta, we called her. She bit me every time I pet her.” “Masochist,” I mumble. “You wish.”
This was told all from Lilah's point-of-view and she spends a lot of time pointing out how feeling so different from everyone else, which she puts down to her ADHD, has her constantly at odds with people and wanting to hide away from the world. Of course, there wasn't really any awkwardness with Arthur, he, covertly to Lilah but obvious to readers, clicks with and falls for her immediately. I honestly thought there was going to be messaging at the end how everyone feels weird and awkward and Lilah really wasn't that different but this was more of a women's/lit fiction story where Lilah's issues felt dragged out (352 pages) and rehashed to death. Arthur gets some focus on his family issues and PTSD but his character was not focused on in that a male main character in a romance but women's fiction vibe story. There was an open door scene where Arthur just decided to suddenly verbalize his love, spouting “wife” and the like, for some good pull quote scenes, but Lilah, of course, just passed it all off as “in the moment”.
But when Arthur looks at me like this, I realize maybe being unique isn’t a tragedy if it’s the reason he keeps smiling at me.
Again, if I hadn't just read some similar vibe stories and characters, maybe I would have enjoyed this more but this just felt long, rehashing, and more of Lilah's story than a total romance. She has self-esteem issues to work through, her thinking her ADHD makes her so different from everyone else and how her birth mother gave her up (she got adopted at sixteen and has a great relationship with her adopted parents). She says blunt things to Arthur that he delights in and he's just so immediately interested and into her but she has no idea! There was some Formula 1 world-setting, Lilah (readers) getting explanations from Arthur's team about the sport and some race scenes. Arthur's racing team members gave us some pretty good secondary characters and Lilah getting her place in the “family” was a favorite aspect of this book. Overall, too much of that lit fic internal thoughts focus with Lilah and not enough romantic relationship development with Arthur.