Super Sad True Love Story

I've been taking my time reading Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart because it's such a good read. It's set in a futuristic America, and it brings a lot of subtle attention, well-made points to the shallowness of our digital-reality-obsessed generation. (And yes, sorry for saying these words on a blog.) Below are a few of the snippets that have hit home the most.

I felt scared, not because of the military operation outside, but because I knew that i could never leave her. No matter how she treated me. No matter how bad she made me feel. Because in her anger and anxiety there was familiarity and relief.

Eunice had no idea what the hell she was doing. And neither did I.

With just a few morning kisses on my eyelids, unbidden, welcome kisses, Euny could transform me for the rest of the day into the opposite of Chekhov's ugly Laptev. I would greet the food deliveryman in my boxershorts, forgetting my usual timidity at showing my hairy legs, reveling in the idea that on the couch behind me this little girl...was fully ensconced within her digital reality but also within the walls of my apartment. I would hand the deliveryman his ten yuan-pegged dollars with my chest thrust forward, with a Joshie-grade smile on my face, the smile of one of life's easy champions. I am a man, and this is my money, and here is my future wife, and this is my charmed life.

We argued daily. She never backed down. A fighter to the very last. This is how a human being is forged after an unhappy early life.This is the independence of growing up, of standing up for yourself, even if against a phantom enemy.

I saw that there were at least two truths to my life. The truth of my existence and the truth of my demise.