October 26, 2024 – Northcote
Almost dropped this so many times but hate-read it until the end. Perhaps got better on the last act or so. Found all the references to games and coding deeply cringe. Almost threw the Kindle off the balcony after the horrific sex scene. Hated all the characters. Got mad about how I could be reading something better many times. Became obsessed and confounded by why so many other people loved this but I despised it. Found the friendships insipid and trite. I have worked in tech and been a designer and run companies and moved cities and had deep friendships and suffered chronic health problems and pain and experienced depression and grief and yet this just felt like a horrible soap opera making fun of the depth and awe and horror and joy of those experiences. Remarkably boring, benign and self indulgent, felt like the author romanticising a life they haven't led. Absolutely not for me. Sorry!