RaveThe Independent (UK)Nate’s uncertainty about whether he wants to commit is matched by the reader’s uncertainty about whether he deserves [Hannah]. It’s a brilliant depiction of the modern male psyche: Nate’s description of the perfect blow-job, which he envisions with perfect clarity but won’t explain to Hannah, is a tour de force, and I loved his reaction, on receiving an emotional email from Hannah, of wanting either to smash his computer, go for a ten-mile run uphill or read some Schopenhauer. It’s also a razor-sharp dissection of the rigours of the New York dating scene, full of unspoken but cast-iron rules and points lost and gained. Waldman’s prose is clear and elegant, and she can skewer a character in a couple of sentences ... A clever, funny novel which works on both an intellectual and an emotional level, and makes you both condemn and sympathise with its protagonist.
