Several pages in I wanted to stop. I read several reviews and thought, ok maybe I should just switch to audio and speed through it. Luckily there was a copy on my library app. This is the only reason I finished it.

I knew Rabbit was reprehensible and would be for the duration of the book from the reviews. I did not know just how annoyingly icky he would be. I mean he's just a moaning, whinging selfish twerp with the most egocentric morality I've ever come across. I'm so glad at least two women didn't stand for his nonsense. And I abhor how he tries to bring religion into this. The point of being a Christian is that you try to be a better person. Rabbit doesn't try at all. He just gives in to whatever instinct is driving him in the moment. 

I cannot believe he wrote more books with this main character. As a study of human nature, this is not a good one. Iris Murdoch does it much better with equally selfish characters. I do not agree with Joyce Carol Oates that Updike is “a master, like Flaubert, of mesmerizing us with his narrative voice even as he might repel us with the vanities of human desire his scalpel exposes.” Sorry but his voice does not do anything for me. I much prefer Steinbeck and Hemingway.