This was my first time reading it and I feel like these past two months have been a good time in my life to attempt this. I feel accomplished, but I don't necessarily feel like I finished it so much as just read it and now can go back to it with a better understanding. There's a lot that I missed the first time around and had to look up on sites to help me understand. It's funny cause I'm trying to persuade my friends to read this daunting thing with phrases from the book, like "I totally ID'd with this thing despite never having severe addiction, intense family drama, a vast knowledge of tennis/separatism politics." It's sad, but in a beautiful and honest way that kind of makes you aware of stuff in your own life that you've noticed, but never really dwelled on before. The narrative structure was fun and is partly the reason why I want to reread it.
The characters were perfect. The phone calls were probably my favorite part, especially the bits where people just felt it so hard to relate or listen to each other.
I feel like Mario's character was a great honest view against this sometimes, although I get annoyed that he was thought of through Hal as sort of this miracle, just because somebody is deformed doesn't make them this figure to praise, I feel like it came more out of Mario's ability to just be genuine.
I want to update this review as I think of more things to talk about cause I have nobody to talk about it with.
But I really want to know what people think about Schtitt because his philosophy was sort of confusing initially to me at first. How to achieve a being and a self and what not. I've read some stuff online about it, but I wish I had a firmer understanding.