Super Sad True Love Story

A Novel

By: Gary Shteyngart

Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Adam Grupper

Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, creates a compelling reality in this tale about an illiterate America in the not-too-distant future. Lenny Abramov may just be penning the world’s last diary. Which is good, because while falling in love with a rather unpleasant woman and witnessing the fall of a great empire, Lenny has a lot to write about.

©2010 Gary Shteyngart (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"Shteyngart's earnestly struggling characters—along with a flurry of running gags—keep the nightmare tour of tomorrow grounded. A rich commentary on the obsessions and catastrophes of the information age and a heartbreaker worthy of its title, this is Shteyngart's best yet." ( Publishers Weekly)

"Full-tilt and fulminating satirist Shteyngart is mordant, gleeful, and embracive as he funnels today's follies and atrocities into a devilishly hilarious, soul-shriveling, and all-too plausible vision of a ruthless and crass digital dystopia in which techno-addled humans are still humbled by love and death." ( Booklist)

“It’s not easy to summarize Shteyngart; there’s so much satirical gunpowder packed into every sentence that the effect gets lost in the short version. But basically, this is a love story [that is] ridiculously witty and painfully prescient, but more than either of those, it’s romantic." ( Time)

Meh

Too many words
Not enough structure
A little crass for my taste
Occasionally well-written, making me want to continue and complete the book.
Disappointing ending.
Most contemporary American male "lit" authors are not my favorite style - I find them complain-y and rambling

All around fantastic

If you could sum up Super Sad True Love Story in three words, what would they be?

Thought provoking, relevant, emotionally poignant.

What did you like best about this story?

It was a great cautionary tale. It swept me away into this futuristic world. The characters tugged at my heart as they were expertly and elegantly brought to life by these two narrators. At first I thought Lenny's voice would annoy me, but as I listened, it was actually perfect for the character. The female's performance could not have been more excellent. This was well cast--the actors were phenomenal.

Have you listened to any of Ali Ahn and Adam Grupper ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No. But I would like to listen to more of Ali Ahn in particular.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

It was all quite stirring. I loved every "page."

Any additional comments?

Highly recommended for story and narration.

Yawn

I think he's trying to write something like Snow Crash, but it just wasn't engaging me after three hours, so I'm ditching it. Some reviews said that the 2nd half gets boring. If the 2nd half is worse than the 1st, then I don't have any interest in sticking with it.

Don't Buy The Book!

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

The performance was great compared to the book. I hated the story line and think the author had to have known this book was terrible. Don't waste your time.

What was most disappointing about Gary Shteyngart’s story?

The annoying young girl in the story. No one is likable in this book.

Did Ali Ahn and Adam Grupper do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

Great job. You could really hear the difference of the tones in the characters. For being such a bad book I think they did a great job.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment and anger.

Maybe if you liked "Infinite Jest"

I plowed through 35 minutes of this then gave up. The main character is a well-educated, middle-aged New York Jewish man who is going bald. All that happens is he talks to his smartphone and it misunderstands what he says. It's supposed to be funny but not the kind of funny where you laugh.

Grew on me

I came back to this and gave it an extra star because I thought about it so much after listening. As I was listening, I was bothered by a lot of little things that I thought took away from the believable-ness of future created. In retrospect, that shouldn't matter. It is a good story with a lot of keen insight.

A little too meandering for my taste

What did you like best about Super Sad True Love Story? What did you like least?

I liked the overall concept of the story. I least liked the minutia, which I understand was meant to color the story, but I felt I had to just bear it until the story progressed again.

Would you recommend Super Sad True Love Story to your friends? Why or why not?

I would recommend it to some friends; to the ravenous readers that enjoy consuming all novels.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

I thought the narration was well done.

Could you see Super Sad True Love Story being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

No

Any additional comments?

This was a pleasant way to spend some summer hours.

A Novel For The 99%

This book is a well-written and preformed warning, one that we need to take seriously. Set in an undefined near-future, Shteyngart paints a portrait of a dystopia we are already teetering on. In the book, the US is dominated by a totalitarian bureaucracy that is desperately trying to keep it's economy afloat with complex financing schemes that remain incomprehensible to most Americans (sound familiar?). The day to day world is dominated by a computer that everyone carries with them, clogged with useless facts and celebrity gossip. "News" is opinion, and the principle opinion that matters is your ranking that is constantly being updated by a mysterious algorithm. Our hapless hero, Lennie, falls for the "ideal" girl—a young, slim Asian woman, obsessed by fashion and her ranking. The affair is doomed (I'm not giving anything away, it's in the title), yet Shteyngart manages to keep us involved and invested in the story.

Ali Ahn does a great job preforming the role of the self-absorbed Eunice Park. Adam Grupper as Lennie has a much more difficult task (Lennie is a bit of a schlimazel), yet rises to it quite well. Eunice grows a little bit during the course of the book - she is very young, after all. But Lennie, nearing 40, still hasn't learned to question his surroundings or his choices — he stands as a warning to us all.

I was surprised to read the reviews of others who seemed to think nothing happens in the second half of the book. This is the part where everything comes to a head; the affair of the main title reaches it's inevitable end, a major character comes to a Brazil-like end, the dystopian society crumbles in spectacular fashion. This book is haunting and memorable—one of the best listens of the year for me.

Great performance, annoying story

I really liked the way this novel started. It was interesting and original. When the "love story" started, I found myself losing interest. The main character becomes unlikable as he gets involved with an extremely unpleasant girl. I was not worried particularly about any of their fates and kind of wanted to get it over with. I was also annoyed by the way the author rhapsodizes about Eunice's thinness for pages and pages, but then makes fun of the way women are obsessed with weight. There were a lot of genuinely funny parts, though, and I thought the performers were really exceptional, as well.

Fabulous Listen!

I loved this book...I think I loved it more because I listened to it, which isn't always the case. The narrators are absolutely perfect and the story is just as promised - super sad, but also hilarious.