In some ways I want to be nice to this book because it’s quite possible I’m the only person who will read it all year. And maybe if this book had been slightly better, I would have. But this read like a creative writing assignment that was barely edited. The writing was clunky, and straightforward. Almost every moment we would be told things instead of shown. Our main characters inner world is sarcastic and quippy, but not in a fun way. He’s also a pervert, saying things like “They [college students] get younger every year but that doesn't bother me. After all, Mohammed married a nine-year-old girl. I seem to lust after anything over seventeen. I'm almost above board.” Gross! Also I find it offensive to keep telling me our main male character is bisexual and yet never have him hook up with a man. If you’re gonna write a character who sleeps around, have them sleep around with all the genders they’re attracted to.

And I feel kind of bad saying that because the main character is quite possibly auto fiction for the author. I hope you’ve grown since 2009, Hill! I picked this up from a used bookstore in Kentucky, which I feel like the author would love. I’m glad I gave it a chance and experienced this small press, but I would not say my reading experience was largely good. Some positives were I loved the Berkeley setting (andronicos mention!! Steinbeck country mention! Wait why are we talking about Point Reyes when we’re heading south… ugh). I found certain, occasional paragraphs to have the poet charm I was hoping for with this book. This honestly would have been much better as a short story, I feel like a lot of the clunky writing came from padding in the plot. Every side character was paper thin and the detective plot was utterly uninteresting. Unfortunately this is in the 2-2.5 stars range.

This was quite excellent! I loved how the three stories connected, with a nice sandwhich of awful men. The last story literally had me on edge. I highly recommend the audiobook for this one, the narrators are great.

had to read the original crazy girl fiction

maybe you do deserve to be stranded on a rock, Martin

A fine book but not really remarkable in any way. Once again Golding struggles to capture my imagination