Martin wants to jump off a grocery store sign and Ellen wants to swallow her engagement ring. Jane wants a good beating and stef wants a castle to himself. Jay wants a bathrobe with a hole in it and Molly wants a cyborg upgrade. When these six characters find themselves embroiled in a kidnapping gone wrong, reality jumps its tracks and Toledo, that rust belt bastion of disrespect, becomes a playground for fiction and fantasy.

James' postfeminist fiction is smart and accessible; it skips along like a flower girl in moon boots. Still, her trippy narrative packs a wallop with its wry, skin-tight prose, at once insightful and corrosive to reality. Like a postmodern Flannery O'Connor story, High Drama in Fabulous Toledo is unafraid to shake the balance of order and chaos, or toy with our most private fantasies of escape. 

"Lily James' deal with the devil has paid off. High Drama in Fabulous Toledo presents a fresh take on the art of fiction that is knowing, sad, funny, thoughtful and extreme. Put it in your brain and let it entertain you."

"Hilarious and tragic, High Drama reverberates with questions about the nature and place of fiction and fantasy in human experience in a parody and exaggeration of that ultimate oxymoron: realistic fiction."

"High Drama in Fabulous Toledo is a savvy social satire with style to burn."

Valerie MacEwan reviews High Drama in Fabulous Toledo in Pop Matters.

Excerpt:

"James' densely packed prose propels the reader forward from the first paragraph to the last. Her imagery creates a superb background for the insane actions of the novel's self-indulgent inhabitants who gallop across the plot like Sooners running for Oklahoma territory. I found myself re-reading descriptive passages, shaking my head in appreciation of her vivid narrative style. Here's a small example, just a part of her explanation of childhood development:

Around the age of six he shifted from the Ptolemaic conception of the solar system to the Galilean. That is, he came to understand that the universe didn't revolve around him, goddammit, that there was a great big Milky Way out there, with lots of stars, and that his planet body was just one of several, revolving around one of many, revolving around ten thousand billion of same and different, and he was very small. The forgotten and dark ages of eight, nine, and ten were followed by the enlightenment and romanticism of the pre-teen years.

High Drama in Fabulous Toledo is an engaging literary experience. Poignant moments slam into comic prose compelling the reader to go forward, into the soulful depths of James' extreme characters. The other side of this fence is intellectual and should be experienced at all costs. Despite some vivid sexual references, I'll leave this book out on the coffee table."

From Clark Humphrey in MiscMedia:

A raucous, giddy little novel that lives up to its title with nary a tinge of irony. Our heroine is the bored, easily distracted fiancee of a borderline-suicidal bar owner. She gets kidnapped from a 7-Eleven parking lot one night, and turned over to become the captive bride of a rich computer genius completely lacking in social skills.

After the initial shock she comes to like the adventure of her predicament; but soon becomes bored again as she realizes her captor's domestic-suburban plans for her life. Meanwhile, her distraught boyfriend is consoled by a mysterious policewoman with, shall we say, personal issues of her own. To tell any more would spoil the ride.

High Drama is a great light-comic caper story that also happens to be classifiable as "post-feminist" or "genre-deconstucting" (the genre here being romance-novel ravishment). It's also a highly accessible, engaging read that, in a better world, would bring wealth and renown to James and to the literary-press publisher FC2, which put it out.

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While academics argue over who actually invented the word "postfeminism," writers like Lily James are engaged in the task of creating what comes after the feminist movement. Beyond the Buzz, chick-lit postfeminist writing has created some of the hippest eye-catchers in contemporary fiction. This fiction is funny, wry and new. As Eurudice commented, "It is a must-have for girls that have considered selling out."

In The Great Taste of Straight People, Lily James spanks the eternal theme of Chaos vs. Order. Her characters are True Believers, obsessed with the desire to organize relationships, behaviors, and entire lives around earnestly illogical systems. These stories are sincere yet always surprising, brainy yet always entertaining.

"James is trying on different masks, indulging in a form of unseriousness that's really as serious as can be. James will do anything it takes. She's excessive, she's not afraid to spew or flirt with self-indulgence -- to multiply words and images and motifs and to compound densities until the reader's on the verge of either frustration or exhilaration. Creepy and funny stuff."  

-- New York Press