Eve Babitz

A novel about a dreamy young girl moving between the planets of Los Angeles and New York City. We first meet Jacaranda in Los Angeles, a beach bum, part-time painter of surfboards, sun-kissed and beautiful, semi-involved with a married man, glittering among the pretty creatures, blithely drinking Pink Ladies with any number of tycoons, unattached and unworried in the pleasurable mania of California. We follow her as she rises from the mists to the discovery that she's twenty-eight, jobless, with no sense of purpose; that her wild friendships with Gilbert and Max and Etienne might not be as real as they seem. So she pries herself away from this immensely seductive place and moves to New York, to seriousness and work, to meet the agents of her new world.

Advice to Young Ladies Eager for a Good Time : a Novel

Sex & Rage

And then he was gone and the door closed, but the room was still trembling with unrequited love. 

Besides, everybody knows it’s impossible not to drink in New York. 

She was, after all, a writer and they died earlier than anyone. It was truly simple. 

The more someone liked her writing, the fewer clothes she felt she had on. 

Jacaranda had once heard that an artist was "any white person over twenty-five without health insurance”

She discovered what most writers insist is true nowadays, which is that they can only write for three hours a day at the most, so what else is there to do but drink?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER An NPR Best Book of 2017 A Bellatrist Book Club Pick for July 2017 The Paris Review Staff Pick 1 of 12 Great New Books to Bring to the Beach This Summer (The Huffington Post) 1 of 9 Books to Read This Summer (W and Elle) 1 of 10 Titles to Pick Up Now (O Magazine) 1 of 6 Smarter—But Not Quite Guilt–Free—Beach Reads (VICE) "This novel is studded with sharp observations . . . Babitz’s talent for the brilliant line, honed to a point, never interferes with her feel for languid pleasures." —The New York Times Book Review The popular rediscovery of Eve Babitz continues with this very special reissue of her novel, originally published in 1979, about a dreamy young girl moving between the planets of Los Angeles and New York City. We first meet Jacaranda in Los Angeles. She’s a beach bum, a part–time painter of surfboards, sun–kissed and beautiful. Jacaranda has an on–again, off–again relationship with a married man and glitters among the city’s pretty creatures, blithely drinking White Ladies with any number of tycoons, unattached and unworried in the pleasurable mania of California. Yet she lacks a purpose—so at twenty–eight, jobless, she moves to New York to start a new life and career, eager to make it big in the world of New York City. Sex and Rage delights in its sensuous, dreamlike narrative and its spontaneous embrace of fate, and work, and of certain meetings and chances. Jacaranda moves beyond the tango of sex and rage into the open challenge of a defined and more fulfilling expressive life. Sex and Rage further solidifies Eve Babitz's place as a singularly important voice in Los Angeles literature—haunting, alluring, and alive.

A Novel

Sex and Rage

Sex and Rage would be so much better as a movie than a book. But then again, I enjoyed reading up to the desires of my own imagination. 

I honestly get Jacaranda because being forced to make it big into the city when you simply want to paint surfboards and live by the beach is a hard choice. It's a cost between two seemingly perfect and contradicting lives. 

I just hoped that Max and Jacaranda had at least a moment alone, to talk about anything, it just felt like that would have been fair to Jacaranda; although Max owed him nothing. 

Or maybe I just thought it would have been fair to me. Even I, as a bystander, could not lay a finger as to what they really were. I just hoped they would have said some controversial things to each other, but maybe some things really are better off unsaid.

Sex and Rage would be so much better as a movie than a book. But then again, I enjoyed reading up to the desires of my own imagination. 

I honestly get Jacaranda because being forced to make it big into the city when you simply want to paint surfboards and live by the beach is a hard choice. It's a cost between two seemingly perfect and contradicting lives. 

I just hoped that Max and Jacaranda had at least a moment alone, to talk about anything, it just felt like that would have been fair to Jacaranda; although Max owed him nothing. 

Or maybe I just thought it would have been fair to me. Even I, as a bystander, could not lay a finger as to what they really were. I just hoped they would have said some controversial things to each other, but maybe some things really are better off unsaid.

i don’t like putting this in the read category but since goodreads is like this with reviews i have to since i really do want to write some of my thoughts on this…

i was so excited to read eve babitz for a long time now. today i got to sex and rage and from the get go i wasn’t too sure on it, something just didn’t click for me.

the writing is nice enough though, i can’t say that babitz can’t write beautiful prose. but the story (up to the point before i dnfed) was just so lacklustre and boring to me. jacaranda wasn’t a likeable character to me; i wouldn’t even mind her personality on paper since i do like main characters who are not perfect and are self absorbed (i loved the protagonist in my year of rest and relaxation, for example) but with jacaranda i just didn’t see the appeal and her motives didn’t make sense to me at all. she is just… there

very disappointing… i wanted to give it a fair shot and read it all but i just can’t get into it. maybe it gets better, i don’t know. maybe i’ll pick it up again in the future, but i don’t really think so. i’ll give a chance to her other novel, black swans, sometime in the future. i hope that one is for me.

dnf at 35%

i don’t like putting this in the read category but since goodreads is like this with reviews i have to since i really do want to write some of my thoughts on this…

i was so excited to read eve babitz for a long time now. today i got to sex and rage and from the get go i wasn’t too sure on it, something just didn’t click for me.

the writing is nice enough though, i can’t say that babitz can’t write beautiful prose. but the story (up to the point before i dnfed) was just so lacklustre and boring to me. jacaranda wasn’t a likeable character to me; i wouldn’t even mind her personality on paper since i do like main characters who are not perfect and are self absorbed (i loved the protagonist in my year of rest and relaxation, for example) but with jacaranda i just didn’t see the appeal and her motives didn’t make sense to me at all. she is just… there

very disappointing… i wanted to give it a fair shot and read it all but i just can’t get into it. maybe it gets better, i don’t know. maybe i’ll pick it up again in the future, but i don’t really think so. i’ll give a chance to her other novel, black swans, sometime in the future. i hope that one is for me.

aileeeeeeen

there is something annoying about Jacaranda that I quite dislike the persona, but I know how splendid Eve described the character. imagine to be a witchingly beautiful and smart but some parts of your life are quite undesirable; like how she put the blame to someone else for unkind moments or being self-centered. 
it is between either you like or dislike the book, but it was fun, so sensual, and spontaneous.

Isabella 

i got bored with this. wanted to like it but eh. maybe it just isnt for me

It is the 1970s in LA, and Jacaranda Leven - child of sun and surf - is swept into the dazzling cultural milieu of the beautiful people. Floating on a cloud of drink, drugs and men, she finds herself adrift, before her talent for writing, and a determined literary agent, set her on a course for New York and a new life.Sex & Rage is a recently re-discovered classic from author Eve Babitz, herself a muse to many an artist, writer and musician in the 1970s. A semi-autobiographical novel, it charts the highs and lows of a life lived at the limits, and transports the reader to a sunnier, dreamier, more reckless time and place.

Advice to Young Ladies Eager for a Good Time

I really enjoyed the writing style of this book. It was beautifully written. I was not so fond of the main character until Part II which I think really made the book. Overall, I did enjoy it. The ending wrapped up very nicely imo. 

paula

3.5

i know that people don’t love this eve book, but i did like it. i went through a fucked up relationship like jacaranda and max's sooo

maybe i’m the problem because i didn’t like it as much as i wanted to. could’ve been better if there’s more sex and rage.

Elizabeth Denny

Midori Kobayashi

too much whit stuff- ease, privilege, problems, bs, drugs, behaviour. my first book by the author and i get the hype of the writing style but good lord i'd have liked it way more if i could relate to one(1) thing. tho if you already know about eve babitz's life it'd be better, since it is autobiographical..

Anna W

“People go through life eating lamb chops and breaking their mother’s hearts”

Clare Robnett

Part II was WAYYYY better than Part I. There were so many times I wanted to quit this book. It’s tedious to read at times and feels vacuous a lot of the time. Just not my taste, I think.

Mia Hamilton

It is the 1970s in LA, and Jacaranda Leven - child of sun and surf - is swept into the dazzling cultural milieu of the beautiful people. Floating on a cloud of drink, drugs and men, she finds herself adrift, before her talent for writing, and a determined literary agent, set her on a course for New York and a new life. Sex & Rage is a recently re-discovered classic from author Eve Babitz, herself a muse to many an artist, writer and musician in the 1970s. A semi-autobiographical novel, it charts the highs and lows of a life lived at the limits, and transports the reader to a sunnier, dreamier, more reckless time and place.

Sex & Rage Advice to Young Ladies Eager for a Good Time : a Novel

Reviews

Highlights