so gay and the perfect lite read after A Little Life. all the pages were pure comfort and it was an easy read. nothing amazing, nothing bad. will i think about this book in a month? no. was it enjoyable and fun from start to finish? yes!

buddy read with jade and i’m very glad we suffered through this together :)

there was so much underlying potential here, and so many elements that could have been so profound if they were explored, but they just weren’t. they were brought up and then dropped. the pacing was off; the ending was way too rushed.

i appreciate that elliot attempted some character development but it was just so quickly done and half-assed that it didn’t feel very genuine. elliot as a character was so obnoxious—don’t get me wrong, i enjoy a book with an unlikeable main character, but most of the time it just felt like the author was trying to paint elliot as quirky and sassy and that we were supposed to be rooting for him when he was just an awful person.

i also appreciate the representation, especially in terms of disability, but i just think that there have to be better examples of disability in literature out there.

i was looking forward to this one but :/

I enjoyed this book. It’s a bit graphically sexual and definitely not for everyone, but it’s quick and witty and has an excellent underlying theme. Sort of a mid-life coming-of-age. A main character with a disability and the focus on television writing in Hollywood were different and interesting. I’d never heard of the author or watched his shows, but I still enjoyed the book and I’d recommend to anyone struggling with addiction, living with a disability, or anyone feeling stuck in a current relationship.

Could have done with half as many pop culture references but I did like this one.

I love when an author can weave their narrative with equal parts humor, wit, and vulnerability. O’Connell uses equal parts of all three and makes you laugh out loud one minute, contemplate the next, and tear up. The timeliness of my reading this book and the way I needed to read some of these words is eerie. The idea that some relationships allow us to escape our bodies and some relationships allow us to inhabit our bodies is one I am using as a lens to evaluate my past and I’ll take it with me to parse through what the future has in store. A truly remarkable read.

Gonna go ahead and give this 4.5 rounded up to 5 stars. Ummm this isn’t my usual read and it isn’t for everyone but it was hugely entertaining and I kinda loved how freaking messed up Elliot was. His relationship with his dad was the cutest. Starting the year watching someone spectacularly blow up their life with booze and hookers to grapple with his identity was kind of poignant.

Lots (and lots) of sex if that isn’t your thing.

*rounded down from 4.5

Usually, when I’m midway through a book, I skim the negative reviews to see if I agree with them. I definitely understand some of the criticism here — this book isn’t for everyone, the narrator has numerous flaws, there’s a few too many Twitter’d lines to call it flawless — but that said, there’s only a couple books I can think of that can match O’Connell’s storytelling.

The plot’s fast moving, each scene packed with the kind of needle-dropping details you’d notice in your own experience, but leave out when you’re talking to someone else. Like, the unashamed judgement towards people, being awkwardly attracted to strangers, the convoluted nature of a relationship between two people. I don’t know who I’d recommend this book to — it’s the sort of story you stumble into on your own. If you do find yourself reading it, though, it’s probably going to resonate.