See review from Ron.

More smarmy than funny. Enjoyably hateable characters but seemingly unrealistic dialogue.

this was a fun little book about fidelity and freedom in romantic relationships— the style of writing kept me hooked the whole time and the characters, for the most part, were interesting.

Within three pages, I realized that I hated everyone in this novel. Yet, I still found myself invested in their love triangle which was annoying.

Peter Cunningham is a Ph.D dropout ne’er-do-well who lives off his brilliant girlfriend. He meets Leslie, a manic pixie dream girl with a punk edge. What is his attraction to her? Mainly, her propensity for a chaotic personal life.

They are both writers who struggle to write which is understandable. But they use their love of literature and their not writing as an excuse for their amoral and selfish behavior. This is supposed to be ironic. This book is the justification for the amoral behavior that produced this book, a real ouroboros.

I noticed that Very Smart People seem to love this book. From what I gathered, it’s a cynical statement on white privilege. But the characters themselves use cynicism as a distancing measure and they never really contend with their privilege. In fact, people of color are barely in the novel except at the prison where Peter teaches. But you do have to have a certain amount of privilege to have these sorts of problems. Black and brown people, poor people, LGBT people are facing a world that is increasingly hostile to them. The characters in this book spend their time reading, not writing, doing drugs, moving around the country, having sex with people they shouldn’t and notably, not really worrying about money.

There is a threesome that goes horribly wrong and one of the characters ends up with a physical trauma. It is described so viscerally I felt kind of nauseous. Is this good writing?

I did end up staying up late to finish this book. I’m old so that means 10:30. So it did hold my attention. I’m curious what others think of it. I give it three stars.

While this book, as a whole, offers lyrical and devastating prose (along with questionably motivated characters), I found myself rather wanting for something more. I greatly enjoyed Martin’s writing, but found that, as the story went on, things sort of fizzled out. The relationships started to feel stale, the ending left me feeling...nothing. Which is not what I hope for in an ending. I understood what I believe to be his message, however I did not connect with the characters. Excellent sentences, a great plot and descriptive characters, but something was missing.

Feels like it’s stretching a little too far to try and reach Updike levels of unlikable characters, but the writing (particularly the dialogue) helps make it mostly a journey worth taking

Each character is a provocateur to the point of self-destruction and gratuitous impulsivity—imagine inviting the boyfriend of the girl you’re having an affair with to the bar, imagine breaking up with someone by tearing their favourite book in half, imagine calling someone’s bluff when they’re breaking up with you—outrageous, cold-blooded, and fun to read.

“What happens at the end of a story? Something changes, or it doesn't. I like it best when things just stop.”

Another one..

“You are . . . depressed? Bored?" "Are there other feelings?”

This book had a lot that felt a little too real and I can't tell if that's a good thing or not. I think it's good, because I felt like I really had to look inward. Made me realize we all feel this way/go through this at 30? It was funny and dark and real and pretentious at the same time. A good masochistic beach read.