Disaffected young white dude problems. Not my cup of tea. ( )

I did not like this book. I thought the cover looked interesting. I checked it out from the library but then I wished I had not. While I was reading the cat jumped on my lap. His back claw accidentally scratched me but it did not draw blood. The cat looked at me with a neutral expression. I looked back at him also with a neutral expression. Then I kept reading even though I hated the book. My boyfriend walked by and sat on the couch. He turned on the TV. A man was screaming loudly at a police officer. The police officer did not scream loudly. I stopped watching and tried to get to the end of my book. The cat sat on my Kindle so I could not read for a while. The cat walked away. I got to the end of the book. I deleted it from my Kindle with a neutral expression even though I was irritated.

This has been a Review in the Style of the Book (TM).

Actual excerpt from this book:

There was a thing on the table and Sam touched it.
"What is this," he said.
They touched the thing and looked at it.

That is the end of the discussion about the thing; no, you do not ever find out what the thing is. A grapefruit? A brass monkey? An alien? A gob of ear wax? All of the above?

And so, I hated this book. Do not read it. ( )

I fell victim to a STAFF RECOMMENDS card for this book. After having written these cards for years and years, one finds oneself overly-curious for whatever excitement a staff member is trying to share about a book. The bookseller's words (the card even had a snappy little drawing) caught my eye and I went for it. While it wasn't that bad, in all honesty, it really wasn't all that good either. The writing is strange enough at times that it kept my interest, but once I closed the back cover — it just wasn't satisfying. ( )

I'm getting the impression that if you like one Tao Lin book, you'll pretty much like them all but I don't know as if they are quite as dramatic if you read them back to back. It throws you ajar to read them at first when you've been reading novels with safer and more traditional writing styles attached, for example.

In any case, one thing that helped me connect less to this main character was how flippant he was about all these girls and female relationships..well, maybe not so much flippant but incapable of forming a long lasting attention..even possibly incapable of making sincere and emotional facial expressions. I did like the connection of the main character wanting to write a story that basically became what is Eeeee Eee Eee.

Oh, and this one takes place in NYC vs. mainly Florida so there's a slightly different vibe there. Also, I liked the ending quite a bit.


p.s. Yes, they are just inanimate objects but shoplifting was so post-yesterday.


Favorite quotes:

pg. 19 "Oscar Wilde said that a genius is a spectator to their own life, to the point that the real genius is uninteresting."

pg. 78 "I just want to be crying in someone's arms."

pg. 97 "I have an idea or something," said Sam. "We should start from very far away and then run toward each other and then give each other high fives jumping in the air." "Let's do it," said Audrey beginning to stand. "No wait," said Sam. "It's better just to think about it."

( )