Oh, did I read this book at the exact wrong time of my life.

It's about a thirty-nine year old guy who is quickly losing what small traces of cool he ever had to middle-age as he is relentlessly mocked by a youth culture that finds him old, disgusting and out of touch.

I’m forty, very nearly forty-one. I don‘t like Twitter. I don’t know who half the celebrities referenced in the news are any more. (What the hell is a Snooki??) I got a painful case of bursitis seconds after turning forty that lasted most of the year. And at Christmas, my twelve year old niece was teaching me how to play Farkle. (With real dice and a pen & paper. Like in olden times!) While she was effortlessly playing, talking to me, holding two other conversations, keeping score and texting every fifteen seconds, I could barely add up my own rolls and had to refocus every time someone said something to me. An hour of that, and I felt like I should just wander outside and lay down in the snow to die so I wouldn’t take up precious resources that she’ll need.

So I had to grit my teeth a lot while reading.

It’s set in the near future where the current internetization of our personal lives has been turned up to 11. Everyone uses a device called an apparat (the ultimate smart phone) to broadcast all their personal info, and everyone is constantly rating everyone else on everything from personality to sex appeal. There's no concept of personal privacy when your credit rating and your sexual history (which most people film) is available to everyone. In a society where image is everything, aging or being unattractive are considered sins.

Unfortunately, for Lenny Abramov, he’s thirty-nine, ugly, depressive and so terrified of death that he’s been saving constantly for expensive anti-aging treatments from the company he works for. Just before returning from an extended work trip in Italy, he meets the much younger and very pretty Eunice Park, a Korean-American with a lot of issues with her parents.

Lenny falls hard for Eunice and talks her into coming to see him in New York. Despite Lenny being a dork who still reads smelly old paper books and Eunice being a trendy shopaholic with low self-esteem, the two find a connection and begin a relationship. But around them the American economy based on spending is circling the drain and political tensions are running high as the entire country seems on the verge of collapse even as everyone still tries to look good and keep their personal ratings up.

I really liked this premise of a technologically based youth culture run amok as the entire house of cards is about to collapse, and I found the romance between Lenny and Eunice to be (as advertised) a super sad true love story.

But in addition to reminding me constantly of how old and out of touch I am, Shteyngart, pulls a good trick here that makes me feel like an asshole just for typing this. Because how do you rate a book on the internet when that book mocks a culture that feels the need to obsessively rate everything via digital devices?

To hell with it. Three stars. It should probably be a four star read, but I’m deducting a star for screwing with my head and bumming me out.