It’s funny, I read this like a month ago when I was feeling busy and overwhelmed and wanted a fun page-turner and then I only got more busy and overwhelmed, such that back then seems easy, because lately I barely get to read more than a few pages, or a poem or two, and it makes life seem a bit hollow…
But I digress. This was sort of a page-turner, in that I did want to know how it would end, and whether the divergent plots would ever come together, and so I doggedly read on. But it was also sort of…tedious.
One thing about it that’s amusing is that it was written in the early 2000s, before dating apps, and it really makes you realize what a fundamental shift in the culture those apps have produced. Part of the plot here hinges on the idea that seeking a date via personals ads is a shameful and embarrassing thing that one would obviously want to keep secret, which of course only renders you more vulnerable to potentially dangerous people you might meet. And it’s not like the heterosexual dating world is vastly better now, and that dating apps are an unmitigated good, but at least it’s now socially acceptable for straight people to use technology to meet people, jeeze.
Kasia Reads 