Started out entertaining and funny, but took several turns, changing the protagonist that I just couldn't take. Turned into a book that I just would not have picked up. Loved the setting of Madison, WI and many of the narrator's musings were spot-on and funny, but eventually the character turned to delusions and became just too tragic and pathetic for me. Probably too indicative of reality. Wonder what that says about me... Well, I expected it to be darkly cynical. And it was. Loved Bakopoulos's arch take on the humanities. A little too self-aware, though. And Zeke's character was just relentlessly pathetic and delusional, and his behavior so, so outrageous ... He was more of a caricature of a type than he was an actual, believable person in and of himself. His desperation to shoehorn some sort of meaning into his life by identifying with bits of classic literature was amusing, though it didn't always work for me. I'm thinking of the Camus line toward the end. Zeke looks suitably ridiculous in that moment, which works, but something about the nurse's accidentaal allusion seems forced ... Unless we are meant to believe that Zeke has misheard because he is so far gone at this point. I can buy that, but Bakopoulos's intent is not entirely clear ...
What do You think about My American Unhappiness (2011)?
Funny book, but the further I got into the less I liked the main character.
—Luca
The first 4/5ths I found incredibly funny; the last 1/5 not as satisfying.
—Pikachu
Loved it. Quirky and unlike anything else.
—wendychangfong
