I bought this book at a public library book sale. I had no idea what it was about and had never heard of the title before. It was only $1 so it wasn't that great of a risk.
I'm not really sure who this book is meant for, and to be honest, I even skipped full pages and found that the omission was entirely inconsequential. For example there were so many pages detailing a baseball game that just did not make any sense to someone like me, who does not watch or follow baseball. I'm sure it means something to someone who is not me.
There are a lot of multipage paragraphs, so anyone who hates big blocks of text would be exhausted. I understand a lot of it as a stream of consciousness David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest/James Joyce Ulysses type of situation. Although it starts out interesting, it very quickly becomes a drag to get through. You really just have to get through it, not read it.
The synopsis is just a dentist who is unhappy with his life. He is forced to come to terms with this unhappiness by a stranger of a mysterious religion who impersonates him on the internet.
Because of the "mystery religion" aspect of the book, there was a lot of discourse about Judaism, Christianity, and Atheism. It's not for everyone. Personally, as someone who studied the Holocaust, I found the comparison of the history of any religion to Judaism to be particularly grating. It's one of those things where the author thinks he's being really intellectual by "making you think," but just because you get people thinking doesn't mean it was interesting or of value. If you like this kind of intellectual circle jerk, this book might be for you.
I believe I gave it 2 or 3 stars on my bookstagram. I am relieved to see that the readers of Goodreads agree with me.
The next book I'm reading is Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. I needed something truly brilliant to lift me up from this garbage.
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