So I'm thinking this is a fun book, if a little overblown in its dystopian warnings, and then I see this article in the Atlantic (The Rise of the New Global Elite) and as I'm reading it, it strikes me that it's basically talking about High Net Worth Individuals vs. Low Net Worth Individuals and I start to feel a little sick. So maybe I should start taking Gary Shteyngart more seriously.

Still, this book did not do it for me. I didn't find it particularly funny or poignant or awesome. I didn't hate it, but I'd say that best thing about it is the cover design. The second best thing is the title. The third best thing is collection of hilarious brand names Shteyngart made up (AssLuxury, JuicyPussy4Men, etc.). The fourth best thing is the idea of credit poles. Can I walk potential boyfriends past those?! JBF.

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John Scalzi's Old Man's War meets Woody Allen. Not a super great combination, but not horribly unpleasant either. It's different. About 100 pages too long though; especially towards the end I found myself waiting for the story to end. Interesting concepts. Interesting characters. ( )

I bought this book because I read so many good reviews but I never really got into it. I liked it enough to keep reading it and there were certain things that were amusing but I had little or no feeling for either main character. In fact I actively disliked the female character. I certainly didn't find it as funny as the reviewers. ( )

Like the title says this is a super sad love story. Thankfully it's not true because if Shteyngart's depiction of the future in this story was true, we'd all be really screwed ! ( )

Super Sad True Love Story is a dystopian novel set in the near future. The United States of America as we know it does not exist anymore as much of its society and its institutions have been taken over by the Chinese to whom the Americans owe a great debt. The global financial system is pegged to the Yuan and not the US-Dollar anymore, many companies and even former elite universities have an additional Chinese name. What is more, the change in society is an extrapolation of what we do with our smartphones today. Everyone owns a so-called "appärät", a device that is similar to a cellphone but much more enhanced when it comes to functionality. The main form of communication is via those devices, even when people stand next to each other. Also, you can access other people's background, images, their credit rating and more of the like. The devices also allow you to rate people in certain categories. Those ratings are almost like a currency on their own because everyone strives for good looks and immortality in this society. Now this is the world that Lenny Abramov, the thirty-nine year-old protagonist of the novel, inhabits. He is old-fashioned, not caring much about his appearance and ratings and still enjoying reading actual books, which are now called "printed, bound media artifacts". When he meets Eunice, a young Korean American, in Italy he falls in love instantly. However, the two are not well matched on the outside. While he is considered old, she is very young. Where she is beautiful, he does not really care for his looks. He is an avid reader and thinker, she is interested in the latest fashion and still undecided about her future. When Eunice returns to the US, Lenny is already back and she moves in with him, mainly for practical and financial reasons. Slowly, Eunice starts to warm up to Lenny and she becomes more than simply a roommate. What will become of their relationship? What will become of the world they live in?

Gary Shteyngart's novel paints a very bleak picture of our society in the future. His dystopian vision contains many elements that we already see right now as for example the growing addiction to smartphones and judging other people on social media. In that sense, I found the novel quite frightening as I definitely would not want our society to become like the one Shteyngart describes. The financial situation is hopefully too much of a stretch to become true. Still, I had this strange feeling when reading the book. The love story between Lenny and Eunice is really sad, just like the title proclaims. I generally liked the novel, but did not find it overly intriguing. 3.5 stars. ( )