Cringe is such a funny emotion. Sometimes, it's a feeling you deploy to engulf others like a phagocyte. You see someone so unable to engage in the performance of human sociality that you can't help but balk in disgust at them. Other times, cringe is much more internal. Empathy will have you trying to walk a mile in someone else's shoes only for your to realize there were razor blades sewn into the soles.
Rejection was a punishing onslaught of cringe with every page turn. I wanted to fold into myself so hard that I'd squeeze out whatever capacity I had to imagine someone navigating a challenging social situation. What made it so difficult is that as embarrassing as it is to say, I saw myself in the characters that lived in these short stories. Tulathimutte has such a deft understanding of the psychology of the depraved that it physically stings that there are identifiably human traits in them.
I have been a man who believed that self-flagellation was essential part of feminist allyship and bemoaned my lack of romantic connections that followed. I have failed to integrate love and support from partners into my own distorted view of what sex and intimacy looks like. I have felt the deep angst of what a mixed identity in predominantly white spaces does to your self-esteem and understanding of human connection. The 200 pages of this book felt like crawling through a hall of mirrors on my hands and knees, all my greatest fears and insecurities warping and growing and being beamed right back at me.
The sheer depths of depravity this book sinks to makes you feel wholly foolish for every having sympathy for any of the point of view characters. It reminded me of when you make the fatal miscalculation of humoring a conversation with a stranger at a bar, and now you are being taken on a full retrospective of this person's greatest romantic failings and their most agonizingly bad political hot takes and wondering if the two might be interconnected as you watch your beer go flat.
The only saving grace is the sheer spectacle and extreme depravity these stories. it mercifully gives a point of separation between you and these parodies of people, but that aftertaste of ever having felt like them still hangs heavy in the mouth.
It's a nauseatingly good read. Despite its short length, I had to read it over the course of weeks instead of days because every paragraph had me wanting to rip myself out of my skin
by SawkyScribe
7 Comments
Im sold OP, looking forward to experiencing these cringe emotions when I read it lol.
You’ve captured it. Absolutely brutal read. Five stars for me.
Great write up, Tony T is without a doubt the most online person ever and has used that super power for evil [compliment]
My book club chose this last year. I was the only one who finished it. Then I described it to the group, who were all very curious but who couldn’t stomach reading to the end.
I have got to say, reading to the end and having all the stories come together is at least a good reward for putting up with…all of that
this one wrecked me too man. had to put it down multiple times because i kept recognizing myself in the worst possible moments. tulathimutte really knows how to write characters that are just real enough to make you question everything about your own social interactions
the part about self-flagellation and feminist allyship hit way too close to home – like remembering all those times i thought being overly apologetic about existing as a guy would somehow make me more attractive or whatever. reading those sections felt like watching security footage of my most embarrassing moments in college
what really got to me was how he manages to make you feel sympathy for these characters even when they’re being absolutely horrible people. by the end you’re sitting there wondering if empathy itself is just another form of self-torture. took me almost month to finish it because i kept having to process what i’d just read
definitely one of those books that makes you want to delete your dating apps and become hermit for while
I felt so dizzy and sick to my stomach after reading it (in a good way). It itched something in my chronically online soul. Made me feel so seen that we’re all mostly experiencing the online age in the same way LOL (the depraved of us).
Agree, 100%