Private Citizens: A Novel by Tony Tulathimutte

(Thank you to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for providing me with a copy of this book!)

about book:

Capturing the anxious, self-aware mood of young college grads in the aughts, Private Citizens embraces the contradictions of our new century—call it a loving satire, a gleefully rude comedy of manners, Middlemarch for millennials. The novel’s four whip-smart narrators—idealistic Cory, Internet-lurking Will, awkward Henrik, and vicious Linda—are torn between fixing the world and cannibalizing it. In boisterous prose that ricochets between humor and pain, Private Citizens follows the four estranged friends as they stagger through the Bay Area’s maze of tech startups, protestors, gentrifiers, karaoke bars, house parties, and cultish self-help seminars, washing up in each other’s lives once again.

A wise and searching depiction of a generation grappling with privilege and finding grace in failure, Private Citizens is as expansively intelligent as it is full of heart.

my thoughts:

I did not finish reading Private Citizens.  In fact, I gave up on the novel rather quickly.  Why? Well, truthfully, I just couldn't seem to engage with any aspect of the novel.  I didn't care for the characters - who were all unlikeable to the extreme.  I didn't care for all the whinging that seemed to drip from every page.  Seriously, these characters were just too annoying with their complaints about everything and everyone in their lives.  I wanted to yell at them all to just "Grow Up!".  I didn't care much for the writing either.  I felt like the author just wanted to showcase his massive vocabulary by constantly "word dropping" - it was unnecessary and rather pedantic.  As for the story lines, well, they seemed to go nowhere.  I decided that my dislike for the book meant that I needed to stop reading it ASAP.  So, I put the book down and moved on.

Private Citizens was just not for me, but I don't want to discourage you from reading it.  Especially, as other book bloggers seemed to really enjoy the book.  So, here's the link to the TLC Book Tour schedule for: Private Citizens - Check it out! You may just decide that this book is for you.

Thank you to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for providing me with a copy of this book!