I really struggled with this. Some parts were really funny and some were interesting and a lot of it was tedious and pointlessly weird. It definitely picked up toward the end; I could have chucked it about halfway through but I was glad I stuck with it. I could see this as a 1,2,3,4 or 5 star for any reader. Overall I guess I appreciate what she's doing here but it's not really my thing. Rounding up.

I think it’s like a 2.8 cause i don’t understand how you can write a book with so much happening but also so little at the same time.

It’s my understanding that it’s very serious about taking on questions of the corporate culture and I liked these and I noticed them but it was also very weirdly done. Like not vague but maybe there was like corporate + entertainment and the replaceability of human life and it all kinda made it feel like there’s just too much going on for the sake of themes but they didn’t really all come together in the plot cohesively.

Also funny that I read The Crying of Lot 49 which definitely felt like this book was thinking about it in the early sections of the novel.

Seriously none of the characters in this book feel even remotely enjoyable to read and I don’t know if it was intentionally done or not.

This book still has me in a bit of a tailspin. For nearly two thirds of it, all I could think was that this is the definitive novel of 21st century U.S., hyperconsumerist, overmediated body dysmorphia that we've been needing, or at least that I've been needing.

For those of you who recall The Day After, the Nuclear War Threat Made Real telemovie that greatly traumatized surely many youths aside from myself - this novel was like that, only instead of fallout and mushroom clouds and cancer and bunkers, the dangers are television and television commercials and cosmetics advertisements and processed foods and diets and game shows and reality shows and big box superstores. We know all these things are bad, but this novel really creatively explores, to an extreme The Day After-th degree, the extent to which we are all on the fast track to ruin.

The young author of this book is so scarily, creepily genius, in her precocious talent, writing, and thinking, to bring to life this unique take on the post-apocalyptic vision.

This book is hard to describe and absolutely not for everyone. It's...a book where someone eats an entire long braid of human hair, just for one instance. It is pretty much a troubled young woman's interior monologue that may try some folks' patience and should probably gross you out. But it was very unique and a worthy read - in fact, a solid five star, year's-best candidate for me until that final third or quarter, where the book's slight change in focus and setting, to life in a sort of dietary cult, detracted from the sum total a bit in my opinion. It was still interesting, but for me the book didn't quite need it, or maybe it was just all too much.

For me, this book has a solid footing with other creative and horrifying takes on the "well, the societal shit has really hit the fan now, hasn't it?" genre, including works with some subtle or overt elements of sci/fi or fantasy. Some other examples might be: American Psycho, Less Than Zero, The Stepford Wives, The Handmaid's Tale, and especially that one book made into the harrowing, drug-themed film with Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, and Jennifer Connelly - what the hell was that called again? - anyone? But in the author's focus on issues of the body and consumption explored through innovative and experimental narration, I was also reminded of French feminist writers (especially Monique Wittig). And another reviewer cited Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 (a favorite of mine); I think this is a useful comparison to the culture-skewering scavenger hunt experience of reading this book.

These comparisons are just meant to help convey some idea of whether this book might be at all in your wheelhouse, but really, Kleeman is an exciting new voice and her own thing. Very much looking forward to her future endeavors!

Really loved this one- it was just the right story at just the right time. I'm not sure if I would've 5 starred it at a different time in my life. A surreal meditation on consumerism, body image and WalMart.

Reminded me a lot of old Palaniuk.

All reviewers claiming this book has no plot or doesn’t make sense have never had an eating disorder for 15 years and it shows.

A quirky little satire about today's society and some of ridiculous things we prioritize and value.