I'm a music geek and a (formerly?) somewhat dysfunctional human being, so I found Rob's character endearing. For those unfamiliar with the John Cusack movie, which followed the novel fairly closely, Rob is an aging hipster that owns a record store, and his girlfriend leaves him for the man upstairs. As he deals with this breakup, which he is more or less surprised doesn't upset him more than it does, he reminisces about his "top five" breakups over his lifetime, and surmises that if Laura wanted to hurt him that badly, she should have gotten to him sooner - she doesn't even make the top five. I thought it was funny, witty, and a good story, but I had a real problem with the ending - for a guy who is reasonably apathetic about the breakup in the first place, and while is pretty neurotic but has no crippling self-esteem issues really, he gets back together with his girlfriend at the end, who says she is "too tired not to be with him." Ugh. You don't fall in love with them as a couple (she leaves in the first chapter), you never get a sense of either of them treating one another very well, so them ending up back together left kind of a bad taste in my mouth. Nonetheless, not a bad story.

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