Eric
FYI this is a short-story collection, not a novel; the character cameos that bleed through a couple stories are so marginal they don't mean anything.
The first story ("The Feminist") was good, the second ("Pics") was okay but ended a little flat. I will say the texting dialogue in "Pics" is hilarious and pitch-perfect; it's actually the first page I flipped to in the bookstore and made me want to read the full book.
Each successive story in this collection is less impressive and more cringe than the last. The book is obviously supposed to be cringe, but I was cringing at the author's writing choices more than the characters' thoughts and actions.
"Our Dope Future" is a terrible cartoon version of a hustle-culture alpha male. This archetype should be so easy to critique, yet this story is just dumb.
The insane video-request description at the end of "Ahegao" was so long and over the top that it killed any honest reflection about how ruined Kant's sexuality had gotten from porn, instead making him sound like a fake 13 year old edgelord instead of anyone actually in his mid-30s.
And ending with a fake rejection letter from a fake publisher about the book itself is such a silly attempt to be cleverly meta and proactively self-criticizing: "You can't accuse me of sucking, because I'm admitting to it! In fact, maybe I was even trying to suck!" It's a scaredy-cat, have-it-both-ways defense tactic that insecure people deploy.
Starts to feel like a college-level creative writing assignment overall. Weird that this was longlisted for the National Book Award. If this even barely resembles how young people feel about relationships and sexuality in the 2020s, I feel sorry for them, they're doomed.
FYI this is a short-story collection, not a novel; the character cameos that bleed through a couple stories are so marginal they don't mean anything.
The first story ("The Feminist") was good, the second ("Pics") was okay but ended a little flat. I will say the texting dialogue in "Pics" is hilarious and pitch-perfect; it's actually the first page I flipped to in the bookstore and made me want to read the full book.
Each successive story in this collection is less impressive and more cringe than the last. The book is obviously supposed to be cringe, but I was cringing at the author's writing choices more than the characters' thoughts and actions.
"Our Dope Future" is a terrible cartoon version of a hustle-culture alpha male. This archetype should be so easy to critique, yet this story is just dumb.
The insane video-request description at the end of "Ahegao" was so long and over the top that it killed any honest reflection about how ruined Kant's sexuality had gotten from porn, instead making him sound like a fake 13 year old edgelord instead of anyone actually in his mid-30s.
And ending with a fake rejection letter from a fake publisher about the book itself is such a silly attempt to be cleverly meta and proactively self-criticizing: "You can't accuse me of sucking, because I'm admitting to it! In fact, maybe I was even trying to suck!" It's a scaredy-cat, have-it-both-ways defense tactic that insecure people deploy.
Starts to feel like a college-level creative writing assignment overall. Weird that this was longlisted for the National Book Award. If this even barely resembles how young people feel about relationships and sexuality in the 2020s, I feel sorry for them, they're doomed.
