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)

Hard to continue after first half...

Not because the first half was so much better than the second...for the exact opposite reason. In other words, because I realized nothing major, climactic, "more," was going to happen...which perhaps was the goal of the author but it did make for a frustrating, at times boring story to listen to driving through endless Texas. I found the idea very interesting (and that is why I downloaded the book). I also thought it was well said and it had some high points, again, mostly in the beginning when the author describes the world...sometimes it was even funny. BUT the characters, well, the main character in particular, Lenny, was so painfully annoying...I don't need "likeable" characters to like a story (If you used to watch Nip/Tuck, well, none of the characters was remotely like-able, yet the show was great)...I can't pin point what it was that I hated about Lenny...Perhaps his infatuation with a much younger girl who looked like a pre-pubescent girl (based on the description)? The fact that he was more superficial than his boss but he didn't seem to think so cause he read books? I don't know...all I know is that the only parts that were interesting and would not lose my attention by a cactus outside my car window were the "girl" monologues...That reader was absolutely awesome and I'd like to thank her from the bottom of my heart for bringing Eunice to life...maybe it was because of the reader that I thought Eunice's character was much better developed than Lenny's ...She was a horribly damaged and disturbed person but I'd listen to her over Lenny any day. And as I mentioned before, NOTHING happens...ever!!! Even when major events do take place, nothing happens! Nothing (Sorry I just had a deja vu arguing about this with my boyfriend while we were driving...I was trying to convince him to throw this audio cd out the window)

(PS. the three stars are for the concept of the story, the few interesting satires/current reality references, and the Eunice character reader)

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.

Super Sad Future

This book depressed me. I enjoyed it thoroughly but it hit me unexpectedly because it had so many elements that are or soon to be very true to life. The vapid, media-driven, illiterate, attention starved populace, unable to truly connect, chained to status and narcissism, with their heads stuck in hand-held devices, awash in data, streams and rankings. The story is saved by the unlikely coupling of Len and Eunice, Ill-fated as it was and a brief recognition of the possible value of family above all. A good book, deeper than I thought it would be. Ahn and Grupper did great jobs as the main characters. A very good book.

What are you people thinking?

His sad love story has far less to do with the woman than it does with this great but struggling country. Sadly, in ways he too accurately describes, we are approaching many of these dead ends. Best listen this year.

Such a delight!

Would you consider the audio edition of Super Sad True Love Story to be better than the print version?

I've been meaning to read this author for a while, and am so glad to have finally gotten around to it via audiobook. The narrator enhanced what is already a brilliant book with endearing characters by 50% or so.

Which character – as performed by Ali Ahn and Adam Grupper – was your favorite?

Eunice Park.

good intelligent silliness

Thin on plot, this book delivered instead in the realm of character voice. Each of the three main characters has a different skilled reader who kept me engaged and often chuckling at all the fine camp and absurdist satire and insight offered here. As the book approached the end and a clearer delivery of the promise in its title I did finally get hooked by what was happening action-wise, not that it wasn't also predictable.

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.

Great novel, great Audible voicing (both readers are excellent.

One of the great ( and most disturbing) novels of our time. Tragicomic satire on America’s rupture and our tech future. Unforgettable characters.

Somewhere Between Love and Hate

A lot was of things in this novel were polarizing toward me —the things I hated about it were (ironicly) things I either saw in myself or things I hoped others didn’t.

To use a compliment sandwich, the epistolary novel is something of a dying art form. So it is welcome treat to read one intended for a modern audience.

That being said I found the protagonist —Lenny Abramov, to be insufferably unlikely, and while I know that is probably the intent, he reeked of author self insert qualities while brining no endearing attributes. While he is not a bad person and does nothing ethically wrong —he is particularly a spineless goober of a man with little to no endearing who brings nothing to the table in his pursuit the seemingly vapid Eunice Park.

It is Eunice, that I —surprisingly, found sympathetic. Hidden behind her materialistic and conceited demeanor, is a person who truly cares for both her family and others. Against all logic wasting what seemed to be a good less six months of her life baby sitting the both helpless and hopeless Lenny, until the next —and questionably better, meal ticket comes along (though Joshi’s fixation on her is even more creepy). In the end —while I do agree it was cruel and cold for her to leave Lenny the way she did, I found it hard to blame her. The country was collapsing around her and she had a lifeline being thrown to her and her family. That and Lenny adding nothing to her, except being an emotional burden. His only positive trait being “smart” for reading a bunch of old Russian books. I was actually really relieved in the end to learn that Eunice ended up with someone other than those two men —she deserved better.

I felt Lenny’s simping to be both distasteful and uncomfortable to read. And I really didn’t feel bad for him despite the underhanded nature of her and Joshi’s betrayal at the end. Little lesson, kiddies no woman likes to be “simped” over —and they will always leave no matter how “nice” you are.

Which leads me to how unbelievable I felt the situation that drove most of the romantic plot was. No matter what excuses given: Eunice going back to America to protect her mother and sister from a potentially sexually abusive father, or keeping her little sister out of an increasingly volatile political situation, I found her deciding to “shack up” with Lenny —a guy she barely knew, so unlikely it took me out of the story.

Now while I found the dystopian subplot of an America on the brink —and later actually collapsing, to be a fascinating premise, Shteyngart is so vague on what is actually happening, that I’m left more confused than anything else. Now, if this were a different story —one where there is a given reason for the vagueness: like a communication blackout, or the characters being actively disinterested as the events play out in the distant background , I could understand and even appreciate it. But the political backdrop of the Bipartisans, Chinese mega-corporations, war in Venezuela, the immortality project, and the aftermath of the “rupture” are so central to the plot that a consistent and coherent explanation is warranted —and yet never comes.

To end with a compliment, I —despite being a heartbroken man myself, really loved the chapters from Eunice’s perspective. And despite her many —many flaws, found her an endearing sympathetic character who painfully reminded me of a few women I loved before. The actress who does her narration really nailed it. I also liked the epilogue and felt it was a fitting end for all three characters…but I’ve gone on long enough.

Shteyngart writes very powerful prose, and I was particularly driven by how he wrote Lenny’s interactions with his friend’s wife —Grace (one of his few sympathetic moments). Really gave me John Wayne in The Searchers vibes —but seemed ill fitting for a character of Lenny’s low stature.

Ramblin'...and Ramblin' on...

I have no unusual insights to add, but Shteyngart falls short on two counts: the title of this book is inane, and the ending makes it a "Super Trite" True Love Story - I won't spoil it but Lenny's end is really overdone, overrated, and typical of most examples of narcissistic entitlement.

My usual critiques apply here: too much about characters and situations that are not interesting, and not enough about the people who really do have something interesting to offer. I don't think "Eunice" - or "Yew-niss" as the narrator says it, or "UNIS" like some weird acronym - is very appealing at all. What does she offer?? Just pretty-ness? Whatever it is she's got, this book ignores it. I loved that the Italian actresses mocked her.

Still Gary Shteyngart managed to keep me entertained and laughing, and also depressed at times. I look forward to "verbal"-ing about this with friends and family, and streaming on our "operati".