Rejection: Fiction

Let me start by saying that I can't think of anyone I'd recommend this book to, not even anyone in my generally game book club. The most adventurous reader I know texted me to say she was setting it aside. I think it's both pretty good and also so entirely located within a subculture -- young people who exist primarily on social media -- that it's not a book written with longevity in mind. Just like Patricia Lockwood's No One is Talking About This, there's a specificity to this book that means it might well feel like it's written in a foreign language a decade from now.

This is a collection of short stories in which the characters from other stories all exist in the same world and interact in various ways. The title here is important; show more each story follows someone who is rejected and for very good reasons. There's the nice guy who is always respectful of everyone, who somehow can't find a woman willing to date him, the woman who is unable to get over anything, the guy who has honed his own taste in pornography until he's unable to form a functional relationship, each character ending up in situations that will make even the most detached of readers cringe inside. All the stories lead to an ending in which the author's own motivations are examined and found wanting. Tulathimutte writes well and he certainly doesn't treat any of his characters kindly. In the stories in which they are not the main character, they appear fine and reasonably normal, but when the spotlight focuses on them, their personal failings are taken to the most extreme point possible. And if all that has not put you off this book, you may well find it both as off-putting and strangely compelling as I did. Just be aware that the author is willing to be explicit in bizarre and stomach-churning ways. show less

im writing this review before looking at any other review. oh my god. oh my god.
the effortless way TT weaves through the complex justifications and re-justifications, thought spirals, and shame of the chronically online and/or chronically lonely, in a way that is painful, relatable, and so hilarious, is COMPLETELY unique of anything i would have ever expected. i marveled at how he found a through line connecting people, non-people, freaks, monsters, and everything in between, told in a colloquial tone yet without making his reader feel stupid. i cannot emphasize how FUNNY this book is, while also being incredibly valuable and relatable. THIS is what i mean when i say fiction isnt fake.
my favorite story was Ahegao, but the first three in show more general were the best. i liked Ahegao the most because of the incredibly uncomfortable feeling of inhabiting Kant's mind, his painfully awkward situations, and of course, the long and detailed description of his depraved sexual fantasies. despite the fact that this is a delight to read for that part alone, within the context of the rest of the story, and the whole book, it is a look into a mind swirling with deep shame manifesting in new and horrid ways due to the internet.

the flaws i found in the remaining parts are almost explicitly mentioned in the Appendix, which is just awesome. this book is just awesome. every word is painstakingly intentional, you can see the authors own shame and thought spiraling in play, while he acknowledges it in his characters and ultimately in himself. WHAT ELSE CAN TOP THIS??!? show less

In many ways, my dream format for a novel - a series of interconnecting short stories that gradually reveal a larger whole. Winesberg, Ohio, Dubliners, Cloud Atlas, Let the Great World Spin, etc etc.

Rejection takes that format and applies the grievances and the internet centric identity politics of the Trump era. At times transcendent ("Discourse is loneliness disguised as war") and at times squirm inducing in its voyeurism, Rejection seems worthy of revisiting. In ten years it will either be a time capsule of a departed zeitgeist or it will be the vanguard and herald of an age.

This author is surprisingly hilarious. Satirical observations about modern life (or at least, the lives of the younger generation). The characters in these seven thematically connected short stories are all kind of a mess, but stories vary in style and approach. It's one of the funniest books I've read this year. It goes to some pretty crazy places and you get the feeling that he has created fictions exactly as he wants them and in doing so, seems to me to be a fresh and unique voice. I also was impressed with the writing, there were many clever insights peppered throughout.

literally so fucking meta and funny this is what David foster Wallace wishes he could be. This guy has an insane understanding of internet culture and identity politics and could definitely run intellectual circles around me. So self aware ( or not,..,. Maybe one blind spot thsys making all his characters so circular idk) it goes around in a maze. Reminds me a bit of Ben lerner also. And I fuckinh love this genre of book : autofiction meta analysis ft chronically online self obsessed self aware degenerates. Idk man this totally blew me away. This guy is fucking crazy and I love it.

Rejection is the cruelest book I've read in a long long time. I love it! Unfortunately, Tulathimutte decides to wander into a meta-fictional corner at the end, a detaching move that pulls the sting of this book.

"The Feminist" was a story selected for my short story book club, and set its hooks in my brain. Our narrator is a self-described feminist, who becomes a blackpilled incel due to his 'narrow shoulders'. His life collapses under the weight of his absolute bummer of a personality, a bitter tale of what people expect and what they don't get.

"The Feminist" launches into a cycle of stories, where protagonists appear as minor characters. A late-20s woman implodes a key friendship and then her vitally supporting group chat. A gay show more Asian-American with deep self-loathing and sadistic tendencies gets lost in an elaborate pornographic fantasy. A tech bro gives an r/AITA style exploration of min-maxing a relationship into implosion. And a person who tries to eliminate her entire identity confesses that every insane person on the internet is her in an elaborate metatextual troll. The book ends with a rejection letter from the publishers, explaining all the flaws in the book.

It's cute, it's clever, it's incredibly mean. Tulathimutte has a keen eye for the way in which the construction of self is both necessary and painful, and the mismatch between inside and outside generates misery. Social media, dating apps, and the breakdown of traditional forms of social solidarity (including gender and race) all take their turns in the center.

But ya know, at the end of the day the worst thing that all of these characters can imagine is getting cancelled, and they deserve to be excoriated. show less

I listened to this in audiobook format.

This collection of interwoven short stories is a merciless social satire of millennial liberal identify politics and vacuous online existence. There are 5 short stories with main characters experiencing social and romantic rejection. These are intelligent and humorous and sometimes pornographic. The final "stories" are a sort of analytical autofiction-- I could have done without that part. There's a lot of coding, AI, social media terminology, and millennial/GenZ slang and pop culture references that I didn't entirely grasp but well enough to get by. I thought the book was mostly excellent and hilarious and highly entertaining, but definitely not for everyone.