Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte

Thursday, June 5, 2025--San Antonio

I wish I had never decided to read Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte.  It was longlisted for the National Book Award and named by the New York Times as a top book of the year, plus it was on my "hold" list for about 16 weeks before I got it from Libby which made me think it was really going to be good.  Once I did get it, it took me over a week to read the book that has only 272 pages!  Why?  I kept disliking the characters and thinking why should I be reading about these objectionable people.  Then, about 35% of the book rambled in minute detail about how a character was mad at life and spending hours a day on social media creating multiple identities just for the purpose of mischief and getting people riled.   Finally, the "idea" of it all is revealed toward the end.  It at least made things make sense and tied what I had read together.  But I it didn't make me happy that I had kept on reading.  I'll admit that the concept is an interesting one (although there is no real story as one expects when reading a novel), and that the writer is very intelligent and detailed in his writing.  But those do not overcome 1) the sense of the waste of my time it involved and 2) the fact that there was never a sense of an immediate need to see what would be coming on the next page.  For me, this book needs two ratings:  0 stars out of 5 for its worth for reading and 2 stars out of 5 overall due to the creativity involved in writing it.