A Touch of Jen

Product Information

Rich, with rich friends, who spend all their time doing yoga, surfing, sharing mantras from corny self help books- you all know the type. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia's entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and New Age mantra they know by heart. Like Buñuel, Beth Morgan recognizes that erotic desire is funny in the way it degrades subject and object. It’s especially cringey because the main characters lack self-awareness while sort of also being hyper self-aware. What starts as a book about a weird couple with an Instagram crush becomes a summer trip gone wrong, then a quest for self-improvement, followed by a surprising accident and its horrific and monstrous consequences.

By this point, the first two thirds of the book had just completely knocked down all my expectations and robbed me of a significant number of fine motor skills. While at first I found Remy and Alicia to be horrible people, eventually I grew to like them slightly more, and I even came around with Remy, who by the end of the book I still disliked as a person, but by then I came to view his deadpan remarks as hilarious. It is confusing for the first 10-20 pages and it's not until even later that you have a full understanding of who Jen is and why she's even relevant to them at all. A different read than what I normally encountered, I enjoyed the humor especially the knock knock joke about someone being in the kitchen. Mostly, they watch movies together and avoid their “perfectly nice roommate” Jake whom they despise passionately (page 6).If you learn to recognize these Signifiers of Flow, then you can channel your potential for transformation.

Much like Alicia mimicking Jen’s appearance and mannerisms, Alicia persuades herself and others that if she keeps trying, she can actualize her visions.

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