USA Today Reviews ‘Big Rewind’

Editor’s Note:  This is a review by Charles Finch published today by  USA Today, the nation’s largest newspaper, of AllOTSEGO.com reporter Libby Cudmore’s “The Big Rewind.”  He gave the novel three out of four stars.

A hipster cozy! That’s a pretty irresistible idea, and Libby Cudmore’s debut novel delivers on it — her broke Brooklynite heroine, Jett, moves in a world of impeccably cool vegans, wine drunk out of Pokémonglasses, and Psychedelic Furs songs, all the while, in the most hipster gesture of all, disdaining her fellow hipsters. 

The author’s anatomization of this milieu is a joy, funny, precise, and self-deprecating; the story at play, beginning with Jett’s discovery of her neighbor’s corpse and hinging on a mysterious mixtape, is a little shakier, unfortunately. 

Worse yet is a painfully over-telegraphed love connection between Jett and a blandly idealized friend, Sid, which takes scene after endless scene to develop.

Still, voice precedes craft for many excellent writers, and when Cudmore’s sense of pacing and characterization catch up to her wry worldview, she’ll be a powerhouse.

Charles Finch writes the Charles Lenox mystery series. The latest is Home byNightfall.