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3.18 AVERAGE
3.18 AVERAGE
I really enjoyed this book. Empty character, a bit less than zero ish. And I like books about writers, it reminded be a bit of "financial lives of poets" and "Red Pill". Thoroughly enjoyable though I can see why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea
No plot, awful characters. I hated being stuck in Nate’s misogynistic head for 230 pages
I am amazed at how extremely unlikeable the main character in this book is. I kept hoping it would get better, I was disappointed.
Interesting reading this so soon after Sally Rooney's Intermezzo. Both explore the morality of men in their thirties who don't see themselves as fuckboys, but clearly are. idk how much time i'm really interested in spending dissecting that psyche, but i did like a lot of this book. especially how nathaniel wrestles w/ wanting a gf who's smart enough to keep him interested, but not so smart that she won't tolerate his bullshit, that felt authentic.
ugh, horrible. Self absorbed drivel. didn't even finish it.
I wish I'd had this book in my brain for the last decade, but I'm glad I at least have it for the rest of my life. Waldman's first novel achievement is both small and stunning; sure, the people she's writing about are exactly the kind of people that people who get MFAs always seem to write about (themselves), but, since that's true, why is she the only one in the past twenty years or so to cut all the way to the bone of why writers who live in Brooklyn act the way that they do? I don't live in Brooklyn and I never will at this point, but these people remind me of people I've known throughout my various sojourns into spaces full of people who went to private schools, and unfortunately, Nate reminds me of two of my single friends (I will not say who under any torture).
I find it both sad and predictable that the only mention of this book on the NYT best books of the first quarter century was as a "read this if you like" under a Ben Lerner book. Lerner may not BE Nathaniel P, but he's in range of all of the characters here: utterly self-obsessed, status-obsessed, and sure that Brooklyn is the center of the universe.
Waldman may be writing about aspects of her own life here, but she's refracting it through a bunch of different perspectives and playing different characters off of each other with ruthless efficiency and a steely attention to the truth. She gave me just enough of Nate in the first quarter that I was cautiously bought in on. I also learned enough about him through that experience that I was disgusted with him by the end and wished him the worst, which was something she'd already foreshadowed in the first five pages of the book.
Our culture's absurd and cruel gender dynamics haven't been resolved by #killallmen or #notallmen or two failed presidential campaigns by women and two successful ones by a rapist. There is no resolution for what social media and free porn and the general "I have a take" culture have done to relationships, and Waldman addressed all of those things in 2013 and we're at the same point now in 2024 so maybe let's all have some light empathy for Nate while also hoping that the women he dates are able to.
I find it both sad and predictable that the only mention of this book on the NYT best books of the first quarter century was as a "read this if you like" under a Ben Lerner book. Lerner may not BE Nathaniel P, but he's in range of all of the characters here: utterly self-obsessed, status-obsessed, and sure that Brooklyn is the center of the universe.
Waldman may be writing about aspects of her own life here, but she's refracting it through a bunch of different perspectives and playing different characters off of each other with ruthless efficiency and a steely attention to the truth. She gave me just enough of Nate in the first quarter that I was cautiously bought in on
Spoiler
the main relationship with HannahOur culture's absurd and cruel gender dynamics haven't been resolved by #killallmen or #notallmen or two failed presidential campaigns by women and two successful ones by a rapist. There is no resolution for what social media and free porn and the general "I have a take" culture have done to relationships, and Waldman addressed all of those things in 2013 and we're at the same point now in 2024 so maybe let's all have some light empathy for Nate while also hoping that the women he dates are able to
Spoiler
move on from him and learn from the cruelty he exhibited towards them like Hannah did
I really wanted to like this book and I finally started it, but this book just really drags on.
Nate is an unlikeable man living in New York trying to navigate his dating life. His shallow “intelligent” outlook makes for a quite uninteresting read. It’s a classic story of a dating man who is stereotypically judgemental (about a woman’s arm jiggling too much or that she’s not got the right books on her shelf) and of course can’t settle down without a constant feeling of agitation.
This book comes across as trying to be deep and clever but it’s the opposite (as described in other reviews which I wish I had seen earlier). It’s a story we could all guess the ending to and personally do not think is worth the time.
Nate is an unlikeable man living in New York trying to navigate his dating life. His shallow “intelligent” outlook makes for a quite uninteresting read. It’s a classic story of a dating man who is stereotypically judgemental (about a woman’s arm jiggling too much or that she’s not got the right books on her shelf) and of course can’t settle down without a constant feeling of agitation.
This book comes across as trying to be deep and clever but it’s the opposite (as described in other reviews which I wish I had seen earlier). It’s a story we could all guess the ending to and personally do not think is worth the time.
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was pretty tempted to dismiss Adelle Waldman’s The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. as one of those annoying, pointless books steeped in its own Brooklynness and thus published because if there’s anything Brooklyn writers like to read and heap with effusive praise, it’s a book about Brooklyn. Barf.
As a citizen of the Internet and an avid-reader, I’ve made a conscious choice to actively avoid the whole Brooklyn-literati thing. It’s entirely too twee and self-congratulatory for my midwest sensibilities. Also, I have yet to be wholly impressed by anything it has produced. Read more.
As a citizen of the Internet and an avid-reader, I’ve made a conscious choice to actively avoid the whole Brooklyn-literati thing. It’s entirely too twee and self-congratulatory for my midwest sensibilities. Also, I have yet to be wholly impressed by anything it has produced. Read more.
Maybe it's because I'm a "Millennial" working in Brooklyn, but I found this an enjoyable quick read. It felt like Annie Hall updated for the 21st Century - a neurotic New Yorker finding and losing romantic connections while reflecting on his outsider roots. The women he meets are smart and ambitious yet still vulnerable. It seems that he's not always their equal, both in maturity and in professional achievement.
One joke about kale already felt too 2013, but overall the setting was an authentic, self-aware depiction of this particular moment in NYC culture and development. Different settings felt authentic without too much name-checking or overt reminders of hipness, although I agree with other reviewers that "gentrification" gets overused.
One joke about kale already felt too 2013, but overall the setting was an authentic, self-aware depiction of this particular moment in NYC culture and development. Different settings felt authentic without too much name-checking or overt reminders of hipness, although I agree with other reviewers that "gentrification" gets overused.