I had never heard of this book when I read Cory Doctorow’s review of it on his blog. Having gone through a period of deep indebtedness, the experience of the main character felt familiar from the review. I added it to my list of books to read and finished it recently.
The titular character is a twenty-something young man who never completed college but still has the debt from it that cannot be dismissed in bankruptcy. He lives in a one-room basement apartment of his divorcee landlord. He is invited to apply for a job that he can literally do in his sleep. But as with all things that seem too good to be true, things don’t go as he envisions.
My main characterization of this novel is that it delivers how desperate and unsolvable being in debt is. It feels like a death trap. No one tells you how expensive it is to be poor. You get fined for not having enough money in your bank account. You can’t afford quality goods and spend more on having to buy junk over and over. The story never goes in to those details yet somehow delivers the desperation that poverty delivers. The story is just the right amount of weird and the main character is flawed but sympathetic. It is not the most comfortable or uplifting read, but it sure delivers a gut punch about what many young people today are going through.
My rating: 4/5
