Lee
The casual, almost invisible assault on your youth and bountiful dreams not through huge jabs to your gut and face, but in minuscule paper thin cuts gradually applied over the course of very generic, almost mundane actions. It’s an exposé of the hollowness of life and how we really don’t ever fully grow up from those teen versions of ourselves who want to do cool stuff and grow up, but we don’t really know what to do or when. While not limited to it, Perfection is very much an existential social critique parody of the influencer dream and hunt for the picture perfect screen life. You know the type without me even having to explain; you probably have a couple friends that live as such and make sure you know where they are through an onslaught of photo dumps. Through a stream on consciousness style writing without any actual character dialogue, Latronico deconstructs this life condition many have yet we can’t quite put a specific name to it. Not much happens in this book, and it’s by no means exciting at any point, but the prose and realness of how Latronico and translator Hughes captures raw life, is so captivating and palpable. Is this the modern “American Dream?”
The two expat protagonists aren’t bad people, but you can’t really say they’re all too likable despite their self-deprecating acknowledgement of their consumerist ideas and digital fakeness. You’re going to see and feel the plight of these characters despite not necessarily relating to them. It’s very familiar and almost sympathetic yet also some degrees separated enough to slightly mock. While I don’t have a strong relation to social media, I saw a lot of cross over of sentiment and lifestyle from when I myself lived in Austria (the book being Germany). These characters are distinctively human and I absolutely love that Latronico didn’t rely on making them depressed or afflicted with any mental health illness as a scapegoat for their lives. Sometimes even when you have what you want, life feels unfulfilling and boring, and that’s because we as humans will always be chasing a new high no matter how stable and happy we are in the moment. I highly recommend this very quick read to anyone who feels a little lost in life or just doesn’t feel like they’re doing what they should be doing. It’s not going to make you feel better, but it’ll feel like you’re being seen. For Gen X and older Millennials, this probably reads as a horror book.
The casual, almost invisible assault on your youth and bountiful dreams not through huge jabs to your gut and face, but in minuscule paper thin cuts gradually applied over the course of very generic, almost mundane actions. It’s an exposé of the hollowness of life and how we really don’t ever fully grow up from those teen versions of ourselves who want to do cool stuff and grow up, but we don’t really know what to do or when. While not limited to it, Perfection is very much an existential social critique parody of the influencer dream and hunt for the picture perfect screen life. You know the type without me even having to explain; you probably have a couple friends that live as such and make sure you know where they are through an onslaught of photo dumps. Through a stream on consciousness style writing without any actual character dialogue, Latronico deconstructs this life condition many have yet we can’t quite put a specific name to it. Not much happens in this book, and it’s by no means exciting at any point, but the prose and realness of how Latronico and translator Hughes captures raw life, is so captivating and palpable. Is this the modern “American Dream?”
The two expat protagonists aren’t bad people, but you can’t really say they’re all too likable despite their self-deprecating acknowledgement of their consumerist ideas and digital fakeness. You’re going to see and feel the plight of these characters despite not necessarily relating to them. It’s very familiar and almost sympathetic yet also some degrees separated enough to slightly mock. While I don’t have a strong relation to social media, I saw a lot of cross over of sentiment and lifestyle from when I myself lived in Austria (the book being Germany). These characters are distinctively human and I absolutely love that Latronico didn’t rely on making them depressed or afflicted with any mental health illness as a scapegoat for their lives. Sometimes even when you have what you want, life feels unfulfilling and boring, and that’s because we as humans will always be chasing a new high no matter how stable and happy we are in the moment. I highly recommend this very quick read to anyone who feels a little lost in life or just doesn’t feel like they’re doing what they should be doing. It’s not going to make you feel better, but it’ll feel like you’re being seen. For Gen X and older Millennials, this probably reads as a horror book.