A review by thirdcoast
All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen
1.0
Wow - where to start? How much time do you spend on a bad review? Do you go over each fault, watching as you rip apart someone's work, or do you move on quickly and spare yourself any more wasted time?
This could be called: The Sad Literary Man Who Can't Write Believable Female Characters.
Every female character in this novel is like a cross between Pinocchio and a sex doll, something inanimate that is there for the male characters to speak and have sex with. I am aware that implies something wrong happened between Pinocchio and Geppetto and now that I think about it, that could be true; I'm okay with that implication for the sake of this description.
The main male characters are three men in their late twenties who all went to Harvard and are pretty much identical. Okay, let’s see if I can even keep it straight. One is grad student in Russian history. One is a political blogger. The other one --- (it’s like trying to name all seven dwarves) --- oh yeah, I had to look at a chapter title, the other one is writing a great Zionist epic. They (unknowingly) interchange women and are all pretty much passive, indecisive, and pretend they are victims while being shallow and shitty toward the people that love them.
If I had to assign a genre to this novel it would be Literary Fiction Lite - picture a commercial for Bud Light spouting about drinkability. This has readability, but that's about all.
Don't waste your time on this one.
This could be called: The Sad Literary Man Who Can't Write Believable Female Characters.
Every female character in this novel is like a cross between Pinocchio and a sex doll, something inanimate that is there for the male characters to speak and have sex with. I am aware that implies something wrong happened between Pinocchio and Geppetto and now that I think about it, that could be true; I'm okay with that implication for the sake of this description.
The main male characters are three men in their late twenties who all went to Harvard and are pretty much identical. Okay, let’s see if I can even keep it straight. One is grad student in Russian history. One is a political blogger. The other one --- (it’s like trying to name all seven dwarves) --- oh yeah, I had to look at a chapter title, the other one is writing a great Zionist epic. They (unknowingly) interchange women and are all pretty much passive, indecisive, and pretend they are victims while being shallow and shitty toward the people that love them.
If I had to assign a genre to this novel it would be Literary Fiction Lite - picture a commercial for Bud Light spouting about drinkability. This has readability, but that's about all.
Don't waste your time on this one.