Nice Places
by Vincent Chu
DETAILS:
Publisher: Forest Avenue Press
Publication Date: June 2, 2026
Format: eARC
Length: 296 pg.
Read Date: May 11-14, 2026
What’s Nice Places About?
When we meet Georgie, he’s about to quit his job—but his boss fires him first. It was a mutual thing, really.
Georgie has a plan—he’s going to take a year and travel the world. He got a job right out of high school and has spent more than a decade at the company—he wants to grab some of that life experience so many people grab in their late teens/early twenties. He’s knocked off course from that attempt before he makes his first flight—and stumbles into something stranger.
He meets a mixed media artist named Ant. She’s working on her M.A. and is in search of a thesis project. Some silly thing that Georgie tries inspires her—and the two concoct a crazy plan that will suit Georgie’s quest for an experience and her thesis.
Odd times ensue. And a friendship develops between the two of them that will alter the courses of their lives.
Why did I pick this up? Why did I keep reading?
Picked it up because Chu asked me nicely, and because I had fond (and vague) memories of a short story collection.
I stuck with it for two reasons—once you get into Chu’s writing, you don’t want to leave until it’s done. Chu doesn’t have a flashy style, or snappy dialogue, or a tight pace (this book would be ruined by any of those, these are not critiques)—but his writing is solid, appealing, and will carry you along without drawing attention to itself.
The other is the character and his little project; I just needed to see where it went. The relationship between Georgie and Ant—and the difficult way to characterize it—is probably more of a driving force for me.
What does this book tell us about humanity?
It’s tricky to tackle this question because that’s one of the points of the book, and to really answer it would involve ruining the book.
But I can talk about some of the things it focuses on thematically. Chu explores the idea of experiences and how we need them. Particularly shared vs. solitary experiences. The “shared” aspect comes out a lot—sometimes it’s just two or three people, sometimes it’s a family, or a group of acquaintances. Sometimes it’s something as large and vague as “the Internet reacted to X.”
You may not find yourself resonating or agreeing with everything that Georgie and Ant conclude—or any of the other points of view they encounter along the way—but you’ll enjoy the experience of thinking about them.
So, what did I think about Nice Places?
I’m not wholly pleased by the way this book ends up—but outside of a Wayne’s World-esque “mega Happy Ending,” I’m not sure I would be. But I get what Chu did, and it’s both more fitting and narratively satisfying than what I think I wanted. Note, you should not read into my comment that this has a nasty or unhappy ending—just not a “mega Happy” one.
In the beginning of the novel, I didn’t get Georgie at all, and progressed only because I trusted Chu—I was mildly amused by some of what happened to him, and then around the time his whole plan was derailed, I got hooked. By the time his ridiculous plan was hatched, I was fully invested. And that stuck with me for most of the book. What Georgie and Ant went through together was just great, and I’d have happily read another 50-70 pages of it. I admit that there was a period toward the end where Georgie seemed to wallow in ennui and depression, and I had a hard time caring at that point—his ennui was contagious. But once he re-engaged, so did I.
I’m going to avoid saying much about Ant. But almost everything the book has to say comes from her (or in reaction to her), and as a character, she’s drawn in such a way that you’re primed and eager to hear her. So well done.
The other characters are drawn just as deeply as they’re required to be—and not one bit more. But they come in and out of the story so well that you see them as deeply constructed. I wouldn’t have minded more time with some of them, but I was satisfied.
I think I got so hung up on the bigger themes and ideas (at least in my head) that I haven’t done a great job of describing just how fun the book was (with the exception of the whole ennui bit I mentioned above). It was a very enjoyable read, it just got me thinking so much that I haven’t been able to focus on the Georgie’s goofy plot (and I was rooting for it the whole time).
This whole novel was so unexpected, so creative—it’s one of those books that you just can’t guess what provoked Chu to write it, what might have inspired him. I really don’t care, I’m just glad he did.
Disclaimer: I received this eARC from the author in exchange for this post, which contains my honest opinion.
This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
