Well, I tried. The book had been sitting on my shelves for years, and I'd avoided it because of the many people over the years that said it was so fantastic (oddly, I can recall none of these people any more - was it you? Are they people I no longer know? This would make more sense; our tastes vary too much*).

The only salvageable part of this book is the first part of the actual novel - thus, I bequeath 2 stars instead of 1. That part was sad and written wonderfully and cleverly. The rest tried to be equal but was all annoying and awful. The section preceding the actual novel was the hardest to get through - I think I spent two days just trying to get past it. Then the good part. Then back to the no-good, awful stuff.

Eggers devices are so grating to me as a reader, and because it's non-fiction I loathed reading him in 1st person, talking about his life, what a crap person he is, and doing so through things like an MTV Real World casting interview. The meta aspect, the breaking of the 4th wall if you will, of some of his writing made me cringe and roll my eyes. This is what was called the second coming of JD Salinger (according to the book jacket quotes)? Also, Catcher in the Rye comparisons are not going to win me over, ever.

Eff this, this book gets 1 star.

*this is a joke.