I suppose this is proof positive that delight in the topicality of a novel does not guarantee liking it.
This book was solidly, decidedly meh. As my mom put it when we were discussing it, "whatever he was trying to do, he didn't".
I had two main issues with the book. When i started it, I rather loathed all the main characters for being...unselfaware, I suppose. The narrator refused to give in to their self image, so we read them without the kindness at comes from giving people over into their own views of themselves. And I did grow to like two of them, at around the time it seemed the narrator expected me too. But the third...it seemed to me that the narrator expected me to like and empathize with him LONG before I was willing to.
And this was the character whose voice fit closest to the narrator's. I was disappointed that the narrator didn't feel like a fourth character, but like this third character. I wanted each character to have an individual voice, but they all felt mediated through Mitchell's tone and Mitchell's gaze. And, for a book that's savvy enough to laugh at deconstruction, it is surprisingly incapable of escaping the male gaze.
But I am profoundly grateful that it ended the way it did. The end was exactly right. I just wish the execution had been better.