Super Sad True Love Story

I've heard a lot lately about companies' efforts at data mining, or the less malevolent sounding "analytic marketing."  It's the ability of companies to track our digital actions, whether it's spending, saving, or searching on the internet.  That's right: every time you ego-search your own name or try to find an ex on Google to see if s/he has gotten fat or bald, somebody's watching you.  In this context, Gary Shteyngart's latest book Super Sad True Love Story seems more like a warning about where we as a society are headed than a love story.  Think 1984 for the Facebook generation. 

If you read the publisher's summary of Super Sad True Love Story, you could be forgiven for thinking that this book is, actually, fundamentally a love story.  I don't think I've ever seen a summary from a publisher that seemed to miss the mark quite so dramatically, but I'm not sure I can blame them: I've started writing three different descriptions of the book and haven't found a way to adequately encapsulate its message.  (Many props to Ron Charles who was able to do this deftly in the Washington Post review of the book.)  Yes, there is a love story, but it seemed, to me, a vehicle for comparing Lenny Abramov, who's so old-fashioned that he actually still reads (whole books.  On paper.), with Eunice Park, a hipster who is emblematic of the post-literate, hyper-consumeristic America they inhabit.  The relationship between Lenny and Eunice, told through his diary entries (which he writes longhand...he's that old-fashioned) and her "GlobalTeens" messages to her mother and friends, highlights the difficulty of finding an authentic human connection in a hyper-connected digital world.  This is a book about the loss of barriers between public and private life, the "reality" tv-fueled desire and drive to be famous, the breakdown of the American economy, and much, much more.  As the best fiction does, this book has stayed with me long past the last page.  So yes, there is a love story that is a major facet of this book, and it is, at times, super sad.  However, the real love story is for a society that once was and the super sadness is its demise, which feels all too plausible in Shteyngart's capable hands. 

If you like dystopian near-future stories, I think you'd like this.  If you like reading satirical social commentary, I think you'd like this.  And, yes, if you like love stories, I think you'd like this. 

...and one last thing: if you have a few minutes to spare, check out the trailer for the book.  Most book trailers go largely unnoticed, but this one has become a viral sensation.  Everyone will be verballing about it on GlobalTeens.