The Topeka School

Abandoned at 45%.

Nonlinear stories are difficult for me. Especially one with very little story. The praise that I hear from this book has to do with the toxic masculinity/white privilege underlying messages. For that reason and that reason alone was what kept me reading for so long. The book was a mess and I wasn't able to get to know the characters except on a very superficial level. The events of one chapter had seemingly nothing to do with the surrounding chapters. I kept waiting for something to happen in the story, and from what I read in other reviews, nothing ever really happens or if it does at all, it is resolved quite disappointingly.

This book was not for me. I enjoyed the few lines and insights about toxic masculinity, which is why this is getting 2 stars instead of 1.

Quotes:

“that they are individuals, rugged even, but in fact they are emptied out, isolate, mass men without a mass, although they're not men, obviously, but boys, perpetual boys, Peter Pans, man-children, since America is adolescence without end, boys without religion on the one hand or a charismatic leader on the other”

“the real men—who are themselves in fact perpetual boys, since America is adolescence without end—had to differentiate themselves with violence,”