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3.18 AVERAGE
3.18 AVERAGE
I wanted to like this book, and in the beginning it wasn't so bad. It might have gotten a 2.5 if that was possible, since I am impressed an author could make me hate the characters so much. I did not understand why the dialogue went from verbose to "that sounds nice." The character development was confusing at best and as I said, not a single one had any sort of redeeming lovable quality for me. Oh well.
First of all, let’s acknowledge that the cover is gorgeous. It’s unique and compelling and calls to potential readers in a way that can be rare in the adult market when compared to YA. Some designer out there should be patting themselves on the back for this one.
In an interview I listened to, the author described this book as her response to the lack of ways contemporary fiction has addressed the modern dating scene. Okay, I’m willing to go with that (although we’re presumably talking about fiction that does not fall into the often maligned “chick lit” genre). I never saw the payoff of this within the novel itself. Our protagonist Nathaniel refuses to have a smart phone. There isn’t much talk of texting at all. The idea of gender dynamics are not explored in a way that feels extremely fresh.
I did not expect to necessarily like the protagonist of this book. I found myself kind of hating him. He’s a kind of “can’t grow up” pretentious jerk that justifies it all by his supposed intelligence. He lacks an incredible amount of self-awareness. Relationships with women aside, at one point he mentions that he is a good friend, when one of the major scenes earlier demonstrative of his friendship capabilities involved promising to save a seat for a friend at a reading and then not even trying. All other interactions with his “friends” seem to be some bizarre competition. While he calls out girls on being status seeking or social climbers he remains woefully unaware of the fact that he does the same when the importance of his friends opinions become a one-upmanship and after he gets bored, he zones in on any flaw in women (physical or personality). He’s smug in his intelligence, justifying his ability to write pieces in literary magazines and commentate on social problems while being seemingly isolated from the world.
I guess my main issue with hating Nate so much was that it didn’t allow me to challenge anything. Any ideas or conceptions were overshadowed by the idea that he was a huge jerk. I mean seriously, how does Aurit put up with his stupidity that long-term, even as a friend? Although she sums it up pretty perfectly when she tells Nate to “not be an unreliable narrator.” Because he is. Even Humbert manages to be disturbingly charming when recounting his pedophilia and this guy can’t even properly justify his behavior to me, even as he attempts to justify it to himself. His supposed guilt does not make anything better. At the same time I hated him, I recognized at least an honesty in many of the criticisms his conscious voiced that many wouldn’t admit to.
I can’t say this novel really bolsters my confidence level in entering the adult dating scene and finding a decent guy out there. For a book that clocks in at only 240 pages, I had to fight my way through it more than I anticipated.
In an interview I listened to, the author described this book as her response to the lack of ways contemporary fiction has addressed the modern dating scene. Okay, I’m willing to go with that (although we’re presumably talking about fiction that does not fall into the often maligned “chick lit” genre). I never saw the payoff of this within the novel itself. Our protagonist Nathaniel refuses to have a smart phone. There isn’t much talk of texting at all. The idea of gender dynamics are not explored in a way that feels extremely fresh.
I did not expect to necessarily like the protagonist of this book. I found myself kind of hating him. He’s a kind of “can’t grow up” pretentious jerk that justifies it all by his supposed intelligence. He lacks an incredible amount of self-awareness. Relationships with women aside, at one point he mentions that he is a good friend, when one of the major scenes earlier demonstrative of his friendship capabilities involved promising to save a seat for a friend at a reading and then not even trying. All other interactions with his “friends” seem to be some bizarre competition. While he calls out girls on being status seeking or social climbers he remains woefully unaware of the fact that he does the same when the importance of his friends opinions become a one-upmanship and after he gets bored, he zones in on any flaw in women (physical or personality). He’s smug in his intelligence, justifying his ability to write pieces in literary magazines and commentate on social problems while being seemingly isolated from the world.
I guess my main issue with hating Nate so much was that it didn’t allow me to challenge anything. Any ideas or conceptions were overshadowed by the idea that he was a huge jerk. I mean seriously, how does Aurit put up with his stupidity that long-term, even as a friend? Although she sums it up pretty perfectly when she tells Nate to “not be an unreliable narrator.” Because he is. Even Humbert manages to be disturbingly charming when recounting his pedophilia and this guy can’t even properly justify his behavior to me, even as he attempts to justify it to himself. His supposed guilt does not make anything better. At the same time I hated him, I recognized at least an honesty in many of the criticisms his conscious voiced that many wouldn’t admit to.
I can’t say this novel really bolsters my confidence level in entering the adult dating scene and finding a decent guy out there. For a book that clocks in at only 240 pages, I had to fight my way through it more than I anticipated.
Oh boy do I have feelings about this book. But I'm meant to - this book was written to be a conversation starter or ender. Full disclosure: I live in Brooklyn, and I'm trying to be a writer. In case you didn't know, that's the one line description of the characters in this book.They also find dating fraught and difficult - so do I.
This is how you know whether you should keep talking to someone, once they bring up this book. If they say, "I thought it was unfair to men/women", you're done. Because they weren't paying attention. This is a book about how hard it is to justify your actions to yourself, whether you are male or female. Nate is a smart guy who is on his way to becoming a successful writer, and all he wants is a girlfriend. Or he sort of does. He keeps his feelings secret from himself, and likes to ignore the worst parts of his character. Waldman pulls off a very neat trick here - she shows us Nate's action through a close third person, but when she shows us how they affect the people around him, we see him in a different light. He might think the way people respond to him is irrational, but we get to make up our own minds.
So, this book is kind of a fluff book - it doesn't take that long to read and it's about dating. I found myself nodding along with it at times, because I'm a girl in a man's world and feel that I've been treated poorly by men. But then I got mad at myself for nodding, because sometimes, I'm a jerk too. The point here is that even if this novel seems like a fun, silly read, it's ultimately about how we see ourselves, and the different angles we'll place the mirror at to avoid changing it.
This is how you know whether you should keep talking to someone, once they bring up this book. If they say, "I thought it was unfair to men/women", you're done. Because they weren't paying attention. This is a book about how hard it is to justify your actions to yourself, whether you are male or female. Nate is a smart guy who is on his way to becoming a successful writer, and all he wants is a girlfriend. Or he sort of does. He keeps his feelings secret from himself, and likes to ignore the worst parts of his character. Waldman pulls off a very neat trick here - she shows us Nate's action through a close third person, but when she shows us how they affect the people around him, we see him in a different light. He might think the way people respond to him is irrational, but we get to make up our own minds.
So, this book is kind of a fluff book - it doesn't take that long to read and it's about dating. I found myself nodding along with it at times, because I'm a girl in a man's world and feel that I've been treated poorly by men. But then I got mad at myself for nodding, because sometimes, I'm a jerk too. The point here is that even if this novel seems like a fun, silly read, it's ultimately about how we see ourselves, and the different angles we'll place the mirror at to avoid changing it.
Very sharp. At times I couldn't put it down. The protagonist was infuriating sometimes (as he was meant to be) but that just made it better.
I missed the All Persons Ficitious disclaimer at the beginning of this one. Too real. I don’t want to read about being late for something due to the G train while late for something due to the G train!
Well written, but I was totally un-engaged. I also hate Nathaniel P. real bad.
Nate P, main character and namesake of this novel, is not likable.
Let's get that out of the way before my review properly commences. To say something like Nate is "stuck on himself" would be an understatement. Indeed, in Waldman's novel, her main character can only seemingly think of others in relation to himself. When another character in the novel gets a book deal, or a new boyfriend, or a new girlfriend, or children, it's never merely reported as something that happens. The reader is told, by Nate, that it happens, and then, immediately, the reader is told how Nate feel about what has happened. This is just one manifestation of Nate's narcism.
Like many narcissists, Nate struggles in relationships. He struggles, I think, because he sees relationships as something that may potentially benefit him. It's never about making the other person happy for Nate, it's always about what the other person can do to make him happy. Even when he does make his girlfriend, Hannah, happy, it's always followed by a thought like: "and doing the nice thing for Hannah made Nate realize what a great person he was." Inevitably for Nate, his girlfriend grows to hate him, his relationship falls apart, and Nate who says that he has "lost the ability to be in a relationship," merely shrugs his shoulders and moves on to the next victim.
So, fair warning, if you're the kind of person who wants to read about people who you'd like to spend time with in your own life, you should probably skip this novel. Nate isn't a good guy, and we never spend time away from him, which means it's all Nate, all the time (something I think Nate would very much like, although he would feel guilty about liking it, although his guilt would make him realize how astutely conscientious he was).
But is Nate's ostensible awfulness a problem for the novel?
There's a prevalent school of thought amongst readers today which says that what's great about novels is they teach us to empathize. By reading about people who are strange to us, we can learn about them, and by learning about them, we can maybe feel closer to them. And if you're of this school of thought, if you think a novel's primary gift to its readers is the ability to empathize, then Ms. Waldman's novel is a failure. I know that I, for one, would not like to get any closer to Nate P.
I find myself in partial agreement with the aforementioned school of thought. It's nice when an author can inhabit another person, when an author can bring him to life, and make me like him. It's nice to feel less lonely, and it's nice to make fictitious friends. It's nice to share in a character's triumph and glory, it's nice to share his burdens and despair, because, at least, our suffering is mutual, and we need not face it alone.
But I think also, there is something to be said for novels that give us insight into characters whom we wouldn't care very much to meet in our real lives. Humbert Humbert is a glaringly obvious if great example. Nate P, I want to suggest is another such character. Why do men seem to have more trouble with relationships than women? Why is it that we have a harder time articulating our inner lives? Why is it that some of us are such bastards? Waldman's novel gives us a few answers.
I can't say that I found myself wishing Nate luck when I closed the book. I can't say that I felt for him in any real way. What I can say, though, is that I understood him better than I did in the first chapter. And while he didn't seem like a great guy, he did seem like somebody (or a lot of somebodies) I know. After reading this book, I think I'll be better able to understand those somebodies, and if I'm not able to empathize with them, at least I'll know why they are the way they are. And I think there's something valuable in that.
Let's get that out of the way before my review properly commences. To say something like Nate is "stuck on himself" would be an understatement. Indeed, in Waldman's novel, her main character can only seemingly think of others in relation to himself. When another character in the novel gets a book deal, or a new boyfriend, or a new girlfriend, or children, it's never merely reported as something that happens. The reader is told, by Nate, that it happens, and then, immediately, the reader is told how Nate feel about what has happened. This is just one manifestation of Nate's narcism.
Like many narcissists, Nate struggles in relationships. He struggles, I think, because he sees relationships as something that may potentially benefit him. It's never about making the other person happy for Nate, it's always about what the other person can do to make him happy. Even when he does make his girlfriend, Hannah, happy, it's always followed by a thought like: "and doing the nice thing for Hannah made Nate realize what a great person he was." Inevitably for Nate, his girlfriend grows to hate him, his relationship falls apart, and Nate who says that he has "lost the ability to be in a relationship," merely shrugs his shoulders and moves on to the next victim.
So, fair warning, if you're the kind of person who wants to read about people who you'd like to spend time with in your own life, you should probably skip this novel. Nate isn't a good guy, and we never spend time away from him, which means it's all Nate, all the time (something I think Nate would very much like, although he would feel guilty about liking it, although his guilt would make him realize how astutely conscientious he was).
But is Nate's ostensible awfulness a problem for the novel?
There's a prevalent school of thought amongst readers today which says that what's great about novels is they teach us to empathize. By reading about people who are strange to us, we can learn about them, and by learning about them, we can maybe feel closer to them. And if you're of this school of thought, if you think a novel's primary gift to its readers is the ability to empathize, then Ms. Waldman's novel is a failure. I know that I, for one, would not like to get any closer to Nate P.
I find myself in partial agreement with the aforementioned school of thought. It's nice when an author can inhabit another person, when an author can bring him to life, and make me like him. It's nice to feel less lonely, and it's nice to make fictitious friends. It's nice to share in a character's triumph and glory, it's nice to share his burdens and despair, because, at least, our suffering is mutual, and we need not face it alone.
But I think also, there is something to be said for novels that give us insight into characters whom we wouldn't care very much to meet in our real lives. Humbert Humbert is a glaringly obvious if great example. Nate P, I want to suggest is another such character. Why do men seem to have more trouble with relationships than women? Why is it that we have a harder time articulating our inner lives? Why is it that some of us are such bastards? Waldman's novel gives us a few answers.
I can't say that I found myself wishing Nate luck when I closed the book. I can't say that I felt for him in any real way. What I can say, though, is that I understood him better than I did in the first chapter. And while he didn't seem like a great guy, he did seem like somebody (or a lot of somebodies) I know. After reading this book, I think I'll be better able to understand those somebodies, and if I'm not able to empathize with them, at least I'll know why they are the way they are. And I think there's something valuable in that.
This book review, like all my other reviews, can also be found on my Wordpress blog: Bookshelves & Paperbacks.
Isn’t the cover of this book one of the best covers you’ve ever seen, or am I insane? The only reason I bought this book was because the cover stood out; elegant, simple, colorful. I found myself wandering Barnes & Noble when I came across this, and I didn’t even read the synopsis before adding it to my ‘to-read’ shelf on Goodreads. Later, I found the hardcover copy on Book Outlet for $3, and of course I had to buy it because that cover!
I’m afraid the cover is one of the only good things about this book. Perhaps it was own foolishness that I bought this book based solely on aesthetic rather than on the synopsis. Either way, even if I had known the synopsis, I would have been sorely disappointed because it wasn’t the story or the plot that bothered me, it was everything else. I disliked all the characters. The book encompassed a huge time-line, and the novel itself is around 250 pages long, so it didn’t do this large time-line any justice. And I felt like Waldman was using her characters to comment on societal norms regarding gender and literature, which bothered me.
Plot:
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. follows Nate Piven, a thirty-something freelance writer living in Brooklyn. We encounter several of Nate’s ex-girlfriends, and the ones we do not actually get to see, we are told about by the narrator. From his crushes and reluctant relationships in high school to his disastrous relationship with a woman who he got pregnant, Waldman provides a portrait of Piven through the course of several of these relationships. Until she zooms in on one relationship in particular. Nate meets Hannah and they hit it off- will Nate’s reluctance to commit, and his problems with the opposite gender screw things up again, or will he push through and make this work?
Like I said before, I had no problems with the story at all. I enjoyed the premise of following one character through his various relationships, seeing how he started and how he ended up. I enjoyed reading about the women he dated. I liked how Waldman incorporated several different, smaller love-stories in one novel. I did also like how Waldman zoomed in on one relationship and followed the course of that relationship to offer us more insight into our protagonist’s mind. I thought that was a great idea.
However, I did not think that the length of the novel did any of these storylines any justice. If you’re writing a book about the love affairs of a man, I believe that some focus needs to be given on all of his important love affairs, and even though some focus was provided, it was largely fleeting and unsatisfactory. Some of the girls Nate mentions are just there in the pages and don’t actually do anything for the plot, so it seemed filler. I thought the relationships could have been much better fleshed out.
Characters:
My main problem with the novel was the characterization. All of the characters - except perhaps Hannah - were completely asses, and I despised them. Nate was a douche-bag. He was condescending and judgmental. He had no idea what he wanted with life and in this dilemma of his, he dragged other people down with him. He had no respect for any of the women he dated. He was pretentious and spent most of his time getting into debates about gender and capitalism and government that served no purpose in the novel itself, but were just there to make the characters seem intelligent.
The only redeeming quality about Nate was that at least he knew he was a dick. That was about it, though, because even his awareness of his terrible soul bothered me because he didn’t try to fix anything.
Most of the other characters were treated like props. Nate has friends, but they very rarely show up, and when they do, they’re just as horrible as he is. The girls who are out of his friend circle were apparently all empty-brained women who wanted nothing but sex. And of course, despite Nate being a terrible human being, all the girls flocked to him like flies. Why? I have no fucking idea, and I don’t think Adelle Waldman does either.
Writing Style:
Adelle Waldman has all the technique. All of it. She’s a talented writer, but she doesn’t know how to construct a story. Sorry. A little more showing, a little less telling. Perhaps more work on pacing would be good. Perhaps writing a longer novel when there’s a larger time-line, or condensing the time-line to fit a smaller novel. But then again, this is a debut; maybe I’m being too harsh.
Overall, this book had a lot of potential, but it just fell flat.
Isn’t the cover of this book one of the best covers you’ve ever seen, or am I insane? The only reason I bought this book was because the cover stood out; elegant, simple, colorful. I found myself wandering Barnes & Noble when I came across this, and I didn’t even read the synopsis before adding it to my ‘to-read’ shelf on Goodreads. Later, I found the hardcover copy on Book Outlet for $3, and of course I had to buy it because that cover!
I’m afraid the cover is one of the only good things about this book. Perhaps it was own foolishness that I bought this book based solely on aesthetic rather than on the synopsis. Either way, even if I had known the synopsis, I would have been sorely disappointed because it wasn’t the story or the plot that bothered me, it was everything else. I disliked all the characters. The book encompassed a huge time-line, and the novel itself is around 250 pages long, so it didn’t do this large time-line any justice. And I felt like Waldman was using her characters to comment on societal norms regarding gender and literature, which bothered me.
Plot:
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. follows Nate Piven, a thirty-something freelance writer living in Brooklyn. We encounter several of Nate’s ex-girlfriends, and the ones we do not actually get to see, we are told about by the narrator. From his crushes and reluctant relationships in high school to his disastrous relationship with a woman who he got pregnant, Waldman provides a portrait of Piven through the course of several of these relationships. Until she zooms in on one relationship in particular. Nate meets Hannah and they hit it off- will Nate’s reluctance to commit, and his problems with the opposite gender screw things up again, or will he push through and make this work?
Like I said before, I had no problems with the story at all. I enjoyed the premise of following one character through his various relationships, seeing how he started and how he ended up. I enjoyed reading about the women he dated. I liked how Waldman incorporated several different, smaller love-stories in one novel. I did also like how Waldman zoomed in on one relationship and followed the course of that relationship to offer us more insight into our protagonist’s mind. I thought that was a great idea.
However, I did not think that the length of the novel did any of these storylines any justice. If you’re writing a book about the love affairs of a man, I believe that some focus needs to be given on all of his important love affairs, and even though some focus was provided, it was largely fleeting and unsatisfactory. Some of the girls Nate mentions are just there in the pages and don’t actually do anything for the plot, so it seemed filler. I thought the relationships could have been much better fleshed out.
Characters:
My main problem with the novel was the characterization. All of the characters - except perhaps Hannah - were completely asses, and I despised them. Nate was a douche-bag. He was condescending and judgmental. He had no idea what he wanted with life and in this dilemma of his, he dragged other people down with him. He had no respect for any of the women he dated. He was pretentious and spent most of his time getting into debates about gender and capitalism and government that served no purpose in the novel itself, but were just there to make the characters seem intelligent.
The only redeeming quality about Nate was that at least he knew he was a dick. That was about it, though, because even his awareness of his terrible soul bothered me because he didn’t try to fix anything.
Most of the other characters were treated like props. Nate has friends, but they very rarely show up, and when they do, they’re just as horrible as he is. The girls who are out of his friend circle were apparently all empty-brained women who wanted nothing but sex. And of course, despite Nate being a terrible human being, all the girls flocked to him like flies. Why? I have no fucking idea, and I don’t think Adelle Waldman does either.
Writing Style:
Adelle Waldman has all the technique. All of it. She’s a talented writer, but she doesn’t know how to construct a story. Sorry. A little more showing, a little less telling. Perhaps more work on pacing would be good. Perhaps writing a longer novel when there’s a larger time-line, or condensing the time-line to fit a smaller novel. But then again, this is a debut; maybe I’m being too harsh.
Overall, this book had a lot of potential, but it just fell flat.