I'm Not Done with You Yet

June 19, 2023
Sutanto (Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers) keeps readers off-balance in this entertaining thriller. When half-white, half–Chinese American Jane Morgan—who happily self-identifies as a sociopath—enters Oxford’s creative writing program, she feels out of place, unsure of her talent and how to fit in with the school’s insular, lily-white student body. Her transition is eased by Thalia Ashcroft, a gifted and popular peer who takes Jane under her wing. Jane, however, is jealous of anyone else interested in Thalia, and their time together ends with an unspecified act of violence. Nine years later, Jane is unhappily married in San Francisco, with two published but unsuccessful novels. The past comes knocking when she reads one morning that Thalia, whom she hasn’t heard from in years, has made the New York Times bestseller list with her debut novel—the plot of which suggests it was inspired by the pair’s relationship. After some social media sleuthing, Jane flies cross-country to reconnect with Thalia at a genre convention in New York City, opening old wounds and inflicting new ones in the process. Even readers anticipating some of the twists Sutanto lines up will be entertained by Jane’s ice-cold narration (“Californians just can’t help themselves. If I stayed there any longer I was bound to kill someone. Just kidding. Sort of”). This is a wickedly enjoyable treatise on the dark sides of female friendship. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler, Jill Grinberg Literary.

July 1, 2023
Former classmates at Oxford's MFA writing program become locked in a vicious death match at a Manhattan writers conference. Sutanto's campy thriller follows two successful YA novels and a cozy mystery (among other books) and shows the marks of both genres, with confessional, in-your-face, first-person narration and minimal gore, well off-screen. It begins when Jane Morgan, an unhappy midlist writer of what she calls "lit fic," learns that her former classmate (crush, obsession, idol, muse--all of the above) Thalia Ashcroft has hit the bestseller list with a thriller that seems to be partly based on their friendship. Despite their initial intense closeness, Thalia and Jane became estranged after a mysterious incident their first year, and while Jane came back to finish, Thalia never did. Now Jane, mired in a dull marriage to a dull man, with an equally uninspiring career, is determined to reconnect with Thalia and jump-start her life. When she learns that her old friend will be appearing at SusPens Con in New York City, she pawns some apparently stolen jewelry to pay for a plane ticket and hotel room and plows ahead despite the fact that husband Ted insists on tagging along and her literary agency won't help her get into the show. Jane reveals early on her self-diagnosis: "Pretty sure I'm a sociopath. I'm not ashamed of it; in fact it's something I quite like, and I carry the thought in the recesses of my mind like a lucky charm, returning to it the way one might stroke a rabbit-foot once in a while." In fact, the reason the American Jane chose England for her graduate studies is that it's considered the third rudest, most unfriendly place in the world (after Russia and France), and life in sunny California is driving her to constant thoughts of mayhem and murder. The plot in both present and past is quite silly, but crazy stalker Jane is kind of fun. Her self-knowledge seems limited, however--despite swoony sexual fantasies about Thalia, she continues to believe she's not attracted to women. When the point of view switches in the second half, with supporting characters streaming in and twists piling on twists piling on twists, some eye-rolling may ensue. On the other hand, Sutanto's renderings of Jane's Chinese Indonesian heritage and her experience at Oxford, both autobiographically based, are strong. At the heart of this multicorpse thriller is a love that dare not say its name. Come on out, Jane.

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July 1, 2023
Prodigious Sutanto ends her latest with an apology: "I'm sorry to those who might have been expecting something lighthearted like Dial A for Aunties, LOL!" Embarking on "one of the most thrilling writing journeys of [her] life," Sutanto pivots toward darkness with her first work of psychological suspense, "hands down [her] favorite genre to read." Her loyal fans need not fear: Sutanto hasn't abandoned her easy, chatty style even as she introduces not one, but two sociopaths. Jane has never fit in; Thalia is always the center of attention. The two meet as they begin their Oxford MFA (Sutanto has the same degree) and become unlikely best friends. A horrific event separates the pair for nine years, until Thalia publishes a massive best-seller inspiring Jane to orchestrate an overdue reunion in New York City that, of course, prompts the unveiling of secrets (and a few corpses). Sutanto expertly manipulates time, moving between difficult childhoods to perplexing adult lives, dexterously revealing puzzle pieces that calculatingly don't fit. Meanwhile, crazy rich Asians, the publishing industry, and fatal misogyny all crack under Sutanto's deadly glare.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.