gary shteyngart's super sad true love story was supposed to be my anti-valentine's day read. title alone is perfection. also adore the cover, kate spade should make it a book clutch. back to my reading, i sadly did not finish it on time, even though i had the time valentine's day weekend thanks to shia labeouf's #iamsorry exhibit. the plan was also to read it before reading shteyngart's memoir little failure, but since i had return that book to the library first, this was placed on the back burner.
however, reading the memoir, i picked up on some things that i won't have if i hadn't. as i mentioned in my little failure post, i learned that lenny's parents are essentially shteyngart's parents and that the korean girls from shteyngart's high school was the inspiration for eunice. but as i read more, i discovered that shteyngart's mentor/father figure john was the inspiration for lenny's mentor/father figure joshie, since both are obsessed with youth. also lenny's mother was named after his grandmother.
the setting is the distant future, a future i would be alive for and a future i could definitely imagine happening. shteyngart's future is hilarious and clever but to take two adjectives from the title, super sad. in the future we are ruled by an äppärät, an iphoneesque device that one wears around their neck. äppärät just like an iphone is the future's means of staying connected to the world. in the future, the world communicates via globalteens which i assuming is based on facebook. facebook start off as a college kids site but now as turned into the most important form of online communication. given the teens in its name, i imagine globalteens had a similar start. it can also shares and receives the scores and rankings of the individuals around you for the follow criteria: credit, fuckability, hotness, personality, anal/oral/vaginal preference, sustainability. as you can see the future is also driven by sex, a fuckability score demonstrates that fact. more proof, girls wear onionskin jeans which are sheer jeans that show everything, bras that show your nipples and underwear called totallysurrender that are removed with the touch of one button, and there is clothing brand called juicypussy and a store called assluxury. its all so clever but when you think about it honestly, its the exact direction the world is headed. based on this sex-driven society, youth is super important in the future. lenny works for a company that helps high net worth individuals live forever. his boss, john, that i mentioned before, is a 70 something but looks like he is in early 40's (maybe younger i don't remember exactly) and his also obsessed with youth culture, aka hip on all the lingo (which i will explain later). everyone stays youthful and healthy by being los angeles on crack. everyone eats organic, fat-free, antibiotic-free food in order to stay young. in shteyngart's future, los angeles would be mecca (the setting for this story is new york) or maybe los angeles is the future, but regardless, los angeles would thrive because sex, youth, and health are important. oh and shopping is super important too, and of course the media, the main jobs everyone wants are in retail and media. seriously, shteyngart's future is simply an mutant variation of current los angeles. (btw i absolutely love los angeles, is this not an insult, but an observation.)
and in the future, america is no longer the powerhouse it once was. (are we still a powerhouse?) china is the big country in charge. even korea is more stabled then america, we learn this from eunice's (i will introduce her later) parents who realized it would have safer for them to keep their daughters in korea than coming to america. since retail and media are such important aspects of american society, america is ruled by big conglomerates like "alliedwastecvscitigroupcredit" (hilarious but so true). however, america is facing the same problems , it is/was experiencing with occupy wall street. the lower classes are fed up with the class divide but this time they set up their protest in central park. in all honesty, this part was bit over my head (aka i was bored) just like politics is in real life for me. so i didn't pay too much attention to this storyline. i did find it interesting how the us was invading venezuela and venezuela was in our current news due to the protest about their economy. and i am sorry, i know it makes me sound like a ignorant american (or like eunice park), but i always feel like even if you know about politics, you don't know exactly what is going on within the political realm.
but back to the story. super sad true love story is the story of two unlikely lovers, lenny abramov, the 39 year old son of russian immigrants, an old, and eunice park, the 23 (i think) year old daughter of korean immigrants. it seems awkward to note their ethnic background but it is an element that adds to their unlikely love. they love is unlikely because lenny is "old", gross (he looks like a rhesus monkey), fat, and unhip while eunice is the exact opposite, young, hot, thin and hip. i hate to be so shallow but i couldn't get pass how awkward lenny was and didn't believe in their love for one bit. (i also rarely believe in love in general.) they met in rome at a party, for lenny it was true love, for eunice it was a gross random hook up with an old dude. it seemed as though they would never met again, but when eunice comes back to the states, she doesn't want to stay with her family, so she stays with lenny. with the world in turmoil, and of course their love starts to blossom. the love that i am skeptical of (and rightfully so), i mean the title kind of sets you up for their failure.
and though i was skeptical of their love, i did enjoy the book. the book was divided between lenny's perspective via his journal and eunice's via her globalteens entires. the book is also supposed to be a book within a book since lenny's journal and eunice's entries are later published and become a bestseller. i hate to admit it but i found lenny's portion a bit boring but absolutely loved reading eunice's part. it's funny because shteyngart realized this as well because he has lenny write how "the stateside critics have unanimously agreed, the gems of the text are eunice park's globalteens entries. they 'present a welcome relief from lenny's relentness navel-gazing.'" i couldn't have said it better myself. eunice's entries were the gems and i could have read a book of just her entries as i had mentioned before youth have their own lingo, made up primarily of acronyms, which is the way we are headed with our current use of lol, wtf, omg, etc. since shteyngart's future is so sex driven, the lingo is as well, for example, "JBF" or "just butt fucking" is used alot by eunice. but eunice's entries are hilarious and entertaining, like reading a friend's email or texts. to start eunice's username on globalteens "euni-tard abroad", how great is that? also the dialogue between eunice and her friend is pretty rauchy but i guess if you go on a random person's fb, you would see similar talk now. and even though it's raunchy, it's still funny. they seriously write the craziest stuff to each other:
from eunice:
what up twat? missing you 'tard? wanna dump a little sugar on me? JBF
i can never reveal who i really am to him because we would just vomit.
sup, my bus bee-oitch?
from her friend:
wak-waka, ass-sucka! whut-a-happenin?
oh, shit. i gotta subtract. why does alcohol make you go so much? is that a sciene thing?
panda, i'm off to juicy for a vag rejuv . . .
from eunice's entries, we learn that she is troubled young woman trying to figure out life. eunice is so messed up that lena dunham could add her to the cast of girls and do away with all those #whitegirlproblems critiques. she has a trouble past, her father is abusive, beating her mother, her sister and eunice. she is caught between this desire to protect and provide for her family while also wanting to live her own life. at the beginning of the novel is a self-centered mess, but she becomes involved with the movement in central park, and begins to think beyond just herself. though she is no perfect person, she still has her faults. also her love for lenny still didn't make sense, even as she grew as a person.
in the end, lenny and eunice do not stay together forever, but then again not all love lasts forever. their relationship is an example of the kind of love that may not be true or forever but still allows an individual to grow and become a better person. that relationship that helps one conquer a fear (as lenny overcame his fear of death) or help one see life a new way (as lenny showed eunice that there is more to life than media and retail). and in reality we have more of these types of relationships than we do have of the true love forever kind, since there is only one of those. due to this, the title is then perfect for their story, it was super sad and true because not all love stories end happily ever after.
i really enjoyed this book. shteyngart was so clever when it came to creating a future. i recommend reading this novel for the setting alone and of course' eunice's gems.
p.s. i have to add that this library book smelled! it stunk!!! not like that sweet book smell but sour like someone puked in it. i was able to read past it, but i just thought it was funny that in the book, people are grossed out by the books that lenny reads. one guy on an airport complains that his book smells. and when eunice moves into lenny's she is grossed out by his books, she even tries to spray them to make them smell better. so the gross smell of this book only enhanced the story!
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