You’ve got to love Peter, the cynical, smart slacker protagonist in the satirical novel Early Things, who says things like: “I spent so much time on the daily logistics of just staying alive that I often went weeks without remembering that I had no idea what I was doing with my life. I knew, because I’d been told, that passivity was not a quality to aspire to.”

Cleverness & creativity abound in this well-written debut about liberal artist-type millennials, mainly writers, who are high in self-consciousness but low in self-awareness. You get the feeling the novel is a little “meta”—maybe the author knows these intellectual people in real life—but that doesn’t mean the ironic dialogue, witty & fresh, is any less entertaining. Naturally, all the characters are witty & well-read, & Martin draws them with psychological acuity. There are multiple attractions between them, there’s a love triangle & best of all the dynamic women, with their intellectual strength & certainty, keep the story grounded. Somehow we do care about these entertaining characters, despite their frequent unlikeablility!