PositiveFlavorwireFor the first half of the story, Rabih and Kirsten tend to dwell in the realm of the general. They endure common couple conflicts. In such moments, the couple serves largely as a springboard for the ideas of the author. These bits of philosophy, especially in the beginning, are sometimes the stronger components of a given chapter ... The ideas he proposes can at times come across as obvious or shallow, but there is little surprise that out of over one hundred aphorisms, some fall short of revelation. Periodic dullness might be the price to pay in order to breathe in this dense air of ideas; to inhabit an atmosphere in which the given truth lives in proximity to the neglected one ... an ambitious book; one that resolves, if it cannot change art, to widen our expectations of what we might go to a novel for.
