Gunk (Knopf 2026), Saba Sams’s debut novel, is the sort of novel that will likely win prizes. It is also the sort of novel that I don’t find enjoyable. There’s nothing “wrong” with the novel. It’s well-written. It has a beginning, middle, and end. Sams clearly has talent. But it just never “clicked” for me, and I couldn’t bring myself to care about anyone or anything that was happening. I don’t hate it; I’m just indifferent. Honestly, I’d almost rather hate it.
What I do hate is that cover. I can get around the novel bearing the name of the sticky, booze-soaked and cocaine-laced student club that Jules’s ex-husband owns and she runs. But that cover? It makes zero sense. The UK cover isn’t much better, tbh, but I don’t hate that one.
Quick and dirty summary (because I don’t care), Jules likes to “take care” of folks. She wants kids. She did not get pregnant during her five-year marriage to a drug addict, and, in a rather self-defeatist move, just assumes it’s because of her. (But she doesn’t actually see a doctor or seek options.) After the divorce, she still takes care of Leon, her ex, running his bar and doing exactly the type of “mothering” she thinks his own mother does too much of. Meanwhile, he hires young students to sleep with, does a lot of drugs, and hopes Jules turns a profit. When he hires 18-year-old Nim, Jules is drawn to her. That girl needs mothering. Nim sleeps with Leon, and, of course, gets pregnant. She doesn’t want the baby and offers it to Jules, who wants to be a mother. Not adoption or surrogacy. No. Nim doesn’t want a social worker involved. As a same-sex partner in name only. It’s an odd dynamic between Nim, Jules, and Leon. I just didn’t care.
There are some interesting things here about how we repeat the patterns of our parents and how we can redefine family, but again, I didn’t care.
Read this book.
Or not.
I don’t care.
But that cover? Still hate it. (Would have LOVED it with a different story.)
A Girl Named Tommi 