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This ended up being a pretty brief read, and kind of just serves as a means for the author to get the reader acquainted with the world she's built. For the most part, we're introduced to a reality where certain people in our population are born with superpowers, who kind of operate a secret society to hide from those that wish them harm.

The world-building is pretty great, as we start to learn about the mystery of a world-class illusionist who is on trial for the murder of his brother - the caveat being, of course, that no one can find a body. There's a lot of promise to the internal rules that come with the lore, such as the fact that all of these Supers rely on energy systems to indicate their emotional and physical status, along with details of how their powers work.

By the end of this, I was ready to leap into the next book, Kat & Mouse.

I'm honestly not sure what this book wants to be - it attempts to combine a tell-all expose with an instruction manual with random musings on women, sex, and psychology. It also clumsily attempts to shoehorn in a Hollywood love story.

This book focuses on the underground world of pickup artists, or more specifically, online communities and workshops started by them. Some parts of the book are legitimately interesting - for example, the background on how these kinds of communities come to be, and why men are so driven to be a part of them, were actually somewhat insightful. Sadly, these more interesting notes get lost in a self-obsessed narrative about a protagonist trying to hone his craft and be so mindbendingly awesome that the perfect woman will find him.

Though there are moments of self-awareness, the book seems to lose those moments of lucidity quickly in the pursuit of pretentious bravado. It's noxious and tends to liken people, specifically women, to basic computers that can be hacked with simple exploits.

Poignant, sad, and deeply insightful

I had been assigned a watered-down adaptation of this in Junior High, so I went into this with some knowledge of what the general arc would be. What I didn't expect is that I would be reading until the sun came up, bawling my eyes out, absolutely shaken.

From the very first page, I liked Charlie Gordon. He comes across as innocent and sweet, with good intentions and a very one-dimensional frame of reference to the world. There's a few moments where people ask Charlie things that made me chuckle, like his initial confusion at the Rorschach test, but his attitude is strangely endearing.

The prose in this book is phenomenal. The gradual narrative shift from crude writing to eloquent philosophical insight is kind of an amazing writing trick, and the development of Charlie's awareness is hypnotic to watch.

In a way, I was kind of reminded of the story of Faust, where a man tries to use his seemingly unlimited knowledge to get out of an inevitable outcome. I'd argue that Charlie is a far more sympathetic character, but watching his mind develop and deteriorate, along with his strained efforts to work against time, made for one hell of a roller coaster.

Beautiful, beautiful story. I haven't cried like that in a while.