The thing that bothers me most about this novel, I think I've finally clarified, is that its "pop philosophy" is totally uncritical, not "from life" at all, like the subheading says, but imposed on life, an abstraction looking for concreteness. It's like listening to a high person ramble on about the nature of the universe or whatever without knowing that they're high, and so not understanding the impetus of the ramblings. There are a lot of times when I think Sheila Heti thinks she's being profound. There are also a lot of times when I think she's serving some heavy irony. She wants to have her philosophy and eat it too, but she can't. Yes, it's formally "interesting"--a few of the sections are structured like drama dialogue (aha!--the play the protagonist is writing is being taken from real-life materials), and (I guess this is interesting?) she includes real emails in a quirky, numbered-sentence way. But it's a lot of smoke and mirrors for a story that isn't really there. I'd like to hang out with Sheila Heti, I would like to meet her friends, but her book, under all its pretense, is just passable.