DISCLAIMER: Review based on first 80-or-so pages. Heres why
Amazons reviews (few though they were) promised that the book was funny and that this guy can write! However, the book ended up in my DNF pile.
After 80 pages, the mourning period was still going on. Im not sure how long the Jewish mourning period is supposed to go on, but 80/330 pages was too long for me. But that wasn't the main problem.
It (the dialogue, the narrator) just felt inauthentic and contrived. Example: There was much banter that involved characters recognizing one another's use of lines from Churchill, Fitzgerald, et al. in random conversations. Example: (SPOILER--maybe--ALERT) During a several-block walk upon their second informal meeting, the narrator is accurately diagnosed by a cynical psychotherapist.
Overall, it seemed like the author was trying too hard -- too hard to be clever, too hard to be intellectual, too hard to be witty.
Amazons reviews (few though they were) promised that the book was funny and that this guy can write! However, the book ended up in my DNF pile.
After 80 pages, the mourning period was still going on. Im not sure how long the Jewish mourning period is supposed to go on, but 80/330 pages was too long for me. But that wasn't the main problem.
It (the dialogue, the narrator) just felt inauthentic and contrived. Example: There was much banter that involved characters recognizing one another's use of lines from Churchill, Fitzgerald, et al. in random conversations. Example: (SPOILER--maybe--ALERT) During a several-block walk upon their second informal meeting, the narrator is accurately diagnosed by a cynical psychotherapist.
Overall, it seemed like the author was trying too hard -- too hard to be clever, too hard to be intellectual, too hard to be witty.
