Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

While I don't expect much in terms of plot from DFW, these stories felt more like a series of rants than actual narratives. The highlight for me was “Octet.”

This was kind of tough to listen to because every single story I'd be like, UGH I HATE THIS GUY, and literally every time I had that thought I'd be like, “Well, I guess the title of the book did warn me what I was in for.” So I give DFW all due credit for being able to create such gross, gross dudes and still give them some glimmer of internal humanity.

It's very DFWy, which, as has been established, I like. If you tend to think he uses too many words and is a little too po-mo precious, well... maybe this isn't the book for you.

The audiobook is cool (and for me, is what bumped this solidly up into 4 star territory) because it has several different narrators, including DFW himself (which, I won't lie, I teared up when I heard his voice because I'm ~that girl~) and also John Krasinkski read one of the most hideous ones and it was SO WEIRD.

Weird.