Ava Helmer and Gen Goldman are two long standing friends embarking on new careers in different states. Ava is working as an intern in New York for a famous female late-night host; one well-known for her regular tantrums. Gen is recently employed as a reporter for a super small newspaper in a small town in Florida; Gen is also bi-sexual and non-binary. In short, it’s not really going super well for either of them. This epistolary novel follows the emails and text messages of two friends as they navigate dating, what not to say at work, and find out what they are truly good at.
Ava and Gen’s conversations in the new book Please Send Help feel like real conversations I’ve had with my friends in our 20’s. That decade is far from easy, and it does not get easier when you’re trying to navigate who is and who isn’t trustworthy. While Ava speaks to me with her generalized anxiety disorder and desire to be at work fifteen minutes early, I found Gen also easy to relate too. Writers Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin are both pretty well known podcasters, so their conversation work (even in written form) seems to flow much more naturally than reading most novels written in letters. I found myself starting and finishing the book in a single day because falling into the conversations felt like sitting with a good friend. Please Send Help is the second in the I Hate Everyone But You series.
Please Send Help is available July 16, 2019 from Wednesday Books.
