I won this book in a GoodReads First Reads giveaway. I'm actually not really sure how I felt about this novel, hence the three star rating. There were some parts I enjoyed, but other parts I found a bit offensive and unfunny. ( )

I started with great energy: I enjoyed reading about a somewhat cynical, dentist with a somewhat uninspired homelife, his work, his two ex-girlfriends. It was fun as well as occasionally thought-provoking. Then he finds that someone has produced a website for his practice, without his knowledge, and is using it to post snippets of Jewish history. When it became a tale of his increasing obsession with an obscure Jewish sect, I became less involved. I found the history a little tedious, and tended to skip through it. Yes, it was OK. But no more than that. ( )

An amusingly told story about a man searching for meaning in the modern world, whose main virtue I found in the amusement, and not so much in the searching for meaning. Which means, I suppose, that it crosses the finish line as a mild disappointment, though it wasn't a bad effort to watch.

Paul O'Rourke is a successful dentist but a struggling human. Ferris seems to pull off the trick of making him both narcissistic and self-deprecating, with often funny results. His life has been dominated by a search for some larger meaning to subsume himself into. As a committed atheist, God and religion are right out, but women and baseball are definitely in. He describes a few failed relationships in which he always felt he lost his own personality in the desperately needy merging of two into one, a process he names as being "cunt-gripped". It never worked out, of course, leaving him with his growing archive of Red Sox games to keep him company instead.

In comes the bizarre: someone creates an online persona in his name - a web site, a twitter account, Facebook page. The other "Paul O'Rourke" claims to be a member of an ancient remnant of the Amalekite people of the Bible called Ulms, who have paradoxically been commanded by God to doubt His existence. Paul and "Paul" communicate via email, first in confrontation, but Paul becomes more interested in this alleged group that claims him as a member.

Plot does not appear to be Ferris's strongest suit, but he's created an amusing character and placed him in an absurdist storyline. The problems include lack of plot focus, a character I didn't feel particularly invested in despite his amusements, and no real notable payoff to the story in the final stretch. It's an okay book, but not one that should really stick out in the memory.

( )

the first hundred or so pages of this is some of the funniest stuff I have ever read, but then storyline got too repetitive and I stopped caring. ( )

Based on the toothpaste tube on the cover and the unfortunate similarity of the author's name to Tim Ferriss, I'd very unfairly assumed that this was going to be a lightweight and breezy set of musings on middle age, coerced into the structure of a novel. Probably a bunch of long-suffering wife stuff, a distant daughter, maybe some professional confrontation.

Anyway, not to spoil it, but the interruption to the protagonist's life was so strange and so exactly up my alley (having recently enjoyed the language sections of [b:Snow Crash|40651883|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1589842551l/40651883._SX50_.jpg|493634] in particular) that I was reeled in completely over the course of a few pivotal early pages. ( )