As many people have before him, Neil is slowly being forced to realize that all the sex in the world isn’t going to make him happy. It’s a way of filling a hole in his life, a sort of addiction to numb the pain… and like every addict, it’s never going to be quite enough to do what he ultimately wants. I knew not to trust the happy ending of The Game b/c this one had come out. This one came out last year but I know not to trust its happy ending either. Rather, I don't want to trust it because after he asks his now-wife not to read this book (saying in the introduction that it isn't even one of his best- just in case the reader thought he had any interest in them and hence incentive to parse pointless private info from his text- nope!), then telling her at the end he hoped she'd ignored his warning and read this account of all the sex he was having with strangers, all the drugs he was taking, and all his attempts to form a harem of ladies- while all the time missing her of course? Jesus... Small wonder he fails every time; it’s not what he wants deep down and so it falls apart. It would be almost comedic if it weren’t for the very human toll it takes on him and his partners.

If you don’t want to be addicted to sex, read this book. If you don’t want to feel like ever having sex again, read this book. It’s at your option to be charitable and credit Strauss for showing the unrewarding nature of addiction but, at best, he overshoots the mark and leaves you wondering how our species managed to continue to reproduce. In the dance of infatuation, we see each other not as they are, but as projections of who we want them to be. And we impose on them all the imaginary criteria we think will fill the void in our hearts. But in the end, this strategy only leads to suffering. It is not a relationship when the other person is left out of it. So, Trust. I would not have been interested in some crazy-rich couple from the 1920s -- too Great Gatsby-ish for me - if it hadn't been for that other novel. There is a pretty high chance you will die. What will you think about in your last few moments, what will you regret and what will you wish you spent more time doing and what would you need to have done less of to create that time Which leads me to the main point of this review: What exactly about this book is so mesmerizing – and so painful?

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Two days of lethargy and I can't even mentally communicate with Alexa.... So maybe I'm just grumpy and my 3 stars for this novel would have been 4 had I not had to read it on my Kindle but instead immediately absorbed it into my brain. But this fight has been fought, and mostly won, for me personally - allowing for other issues to emerge. The older and more experienced I get, the more other, more complicated, more hidden, more intimate issues demand attention. I feel more and more dissociated from a certain poly-evangelistic, kink-evangelistic crowd that, again overtly and covertly, refuses to engage in critical and honest discussions of obviously abusive, disempowering developments and undercurrents – and more individually, about how our biographies and psychological dysfunctions might shape our relationships styles and hidden agenda both in empowering and harmful ways. Another term I learned is called "anhedonia." Ever heard of this? It means the "inability to feel pleasure." It's not necessarily bad, but at a devastating low-point in Strauss' struggle to overcome his addiction problem and the intellectual barriers he set up to basically deny that he even has a problem, his dear therapist Lorraine wants him to reach a state of anhedonia. The main takeaway here, is that before we can start a relationship with another person, we really do have to work on ourselves first and make sure that we are grown up and stable. Once we are in control of ourselves, we may then pursue a honest and truthful relationship. Perhaps they assume everyone is listening to audio these days and so it doesn't matter? I don't know but it drives me insane when I have to skip entire chapters.

Centuries ago, women who were overtly sexual were likely to be burned as witched at the stake, as they were thought to be in league with the devil. Five centuries later, we've come a long way. Instead of calling them witches and burning them, we call them sluts and burn their reputations. With my last pillar of intellectual resistance demolished, I fly to Lorraine to be healed, to become worthy of Ingrid, to become worthy of myself, to find out who I am beyond the perpetually turning wheels of desire, manipulation, and intellectualization that have run my entire life.” Since I am an early reader, I had the joy of discovering the alchemy created by Hernan Diaz without any advance knowledge or perceptions. In this review, I’m going to try hard to ensure that others are equally spellbound by some of the more intriguing shifts.

There is though a lot to like in the novel in terms of its concept – both at a macro and more micro level. Sort yourself out first before blaming your partner for any issues you have, a lot of those issues will go away Your readers are not stupid. We can figure out when something is happening in a different timeline. You can always just put the year at the beginning of

Then, in part three, women finally get a voice, as it is told by Ida Partenza, the ghostwriter of the manuscript in part two (are you still following, class? :-)). Here, we learn how she was tasked to craft the autobiography of Bevel, and what Bevel wanted to achieve with it. Also, the Rand-like character of Bevel is contrasted with Ida's dad, an Italian anarchist, and her lover, a dedicated opportunist masquerading as a leftist-type of guy. Stuff is said about Karl Marx, and as as someone who studied PoliSci in Karl's hometown, my arm now hurts because of all the facepalming I had to do due to the simplistic ideas about Marxism uttered in this text.

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There is some useful information earlier in the book while Neil was in therapy at the addition centre and then towards the end of the book there is a brief paragraph on various different therapies and resources the author tried which left me wanting a lot more information. Da non credere. Gli eventi immaginari in quell’opera di finzione ora, nel mondo reale, hanno una presenza più forte dei fatti autentici della mia vita. And My Life is Bevel's own autobiographical account, designed to counter Vanner's scurrilous portrayal, both of Andrew Bevel's part in the late 1920s Wall Street crash but also Vanner's version of Mildred, who Vanner has dying after severe mental health problems, but who Vanner portrays as a simple, but kindly soul. Or rather My Life is a partly completed account, with lots of 'add some anecdotes here' type comments left in the manuscript for example: