I had never heard of Lorrie Moore, but suddenly this book was everywhere, receiving quite a bit of hype (usually bloating expectations in the process). I enjoyed this book, even though at times I felt like the pacing dragged and I just wanted something to happen. The dialog rang totally false for me a lot of the time, particularly the uncredited sound bites overheard at the Wednesday night meetings. Who talks like that? It felt very train-of-thought and inauthentic. Stuff like that made me think I was reading a mediocre book, but at the same time, I was breezing through it unable to put it down. When it finally picked up about two thirds through, I was captivated by it. And when I finished it, I was completely blown away. The book as a whole is not as great as the sum of its parts, but it has moments of brilliance and resonance. Her prose is really amazing, and the richness of detail is some of the best I've encountered. Sometimes the pop culture references came across as trying too hard to seem hip and in-the-know, or as overly deliberate time markers. I prefer that references to things like real bands, especially obscurish ones, be left out of novels, if only because it's a moment of being pulled from the story to either identify with the awareness of the reference, or rack your brain trying to think if you've heard of them. Either way, it draws the mind away from the book world and into the real one.