Revolves around a refreshingly human conceit ... But Reality...is not fleshy or funny enough to sustain Kemp’s 240-odd pages. Hampered by aesthetic flourishes like smiley and sad faces punctuating paragraphs and an omniscient voice’s urges to 'Read on, man,' Kemp’s prose is less provocative than cloying ... If Reality is the last hetero-optimist, then Kemp never joins her in her enthusiasm, maintaining an ironic distance and, crucially, some plausible deniability.
Absurd ... It’s a bleak assessment of the landscape for heterosexual women, and one that seems to match Kemp’s own ... The problem with this is that it creates a satire with missing teeth, a hilarious romp that points out the precarity, ridiculousness, and violence of patriarchy without a glint of a way out. I’ll grant that it’s not the task of this novel—or any, for that matter—to deliver an ideologically consistent praxis. But mourn with me, for a moment, the absence of hope, the death of agency ... The joke becomes tiresome when it drones on for too long.
Very aware of itself and its core audience who likely are all in on the joke ... Many have described the novel as funny, but I guess it depends on how much madness you can take or how old you are ... The story becomes increasingly detached from reality but that seems to be the point. Whether you’ll accept the joke enough to read 240 pages, is up to you to decide. You know who you are, girlfriend.
The novel has some genuinely funny moments, but even fans of social satire may find Reality’s shtick tiresome, and for some readers, being expected to care about the fate of a charmless and irredeemably self-absorbed character may be a Brooklyn Bridge too far. Bawdy, occasionally hilarious, and an acquired taste for sure.
Energetic ... The plot is a bit thin, but the inventive conceit yields plenty of humor and incisive commentary. This funhouse portrait of the Brooklyn dating scene feels all too real.
