The blurb for this book calls it a "love story." I don't really even think that this book is a story (much less a love story, which at least implies that there will be characters you can root for).

It's not a story. It's more like a ramble. A vagabond stumbling through the desert, parched, meandering, hopeless, and boring.

I feel so strongly of "It's not you, it's me." I had a 1star amount of fun. But it feels like it's my (and the publicity team's) fault that I went into this book expecting characters to ship, a speculative fiction plotline, and humor similar to Princess Bride.

Here's who I would recommend this book to: people who love the movie 500 Days of Summer (loser protagonist, pining after a doomed relationship). People who like when the author is a character in the book (not in a John Green way, more like in a Lego Movie way). People who like it when books prioritize Weirdness over Plot. I know those people are out there, and I hope this book finds them.

I have a lot to say about this book¹, but most of it would be an angry rant², so I'll just abstain³.

* MY THOUGHTS ON EDITED VS UNEDITED: *
This book has a partner book, which is Unedited. It's a very long unedited version of Edited.

If Edited is a (sometimes barely coherent) pererration, Unedited is so much more. It truly does read like a rough draft, difficult to follow and full of extraneous details.

However, if that is the kind of book you're looking for: a drift through abysmal characters and an Ode to Writing, Unedited is the superior version.

[ Just as an FYI: ]
Unedited could also be called "Uncensored." Edited could be passed off as an older YoungAdult book, but Unedited has way too much (sex, language, etc) to keep that label. For context (at least in the copies I read), Unedited is 3.2 times longer than Edited. It also has 5.1 times more F-bombs. The density is somewhat increased.

Thanks to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for a copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own.

¹ The part of this book that bothered me the most is when Lyga is complaining that no one likes his endings, how he can't write good endings, and how they're problematic for him, and. And I've read other Lyga books; I LOVED THE ENDINGS. It was my favorite thing about the books. So to have our page time wasted with a pity party is lame. But to have it wasted on critique that ISN'T EVEN ACCURATE, even worse.
² This book seriously angered me. I had high hopes for it, and it bombed every one.
³ Of course I couldn't help myself. I had⁴ to include some pretentious and contradictory footnotes to help you understand what reading this book is like.
⁴ Or maybe I didn't write a review at all. Maybe this is all in your head; a complicated and irrelevant dream⁵ sequence.
⁵ You're on Goodreads. The beige colorscheme reminds you of the stucco Walmart building you once kissed a girl in. But wait, you don't have lips, they're all blurry. They say to you, the⁶ password is broccoli. You nod, then panic. Where does that key go! You try it in your bikelock? Finally, a way to escape. You wake up, only to find your blanket has been replaced by a mat of woven bacon.
⁶ Dream sequences don't have quotation marks. You would know that if you'd ever dreamed before.