I am choosing not to review, as I did not finish the ARC.

Who is Rich? Well, no one I really want to spend any time with. He's unhappy, self absorbed, whiny and boring. He can't accept that his 15 minutes of fame is over and done. The beginning of this book reads like one long moan. I wanted to put it down and never pick it up again. I persevered, because hope springs eternal and I kept wanting to see if it would ever improve.

Rich is back teaching cartoon drawing at a summer conference. Five days on Cape Cod while his wife stays at home with their three small children. The prior year he had an emotional affair with a student that continued over the winter and she's back again. She's unhappy and rich. He's an ass, not to mention stupid. And it's not like any of the other characters are any more sympathetic.

I enjoyed the writing. The descriptions are well done. But it couldn't make up for my dislike of the main character and the drudgery of his narrative.

This was not to my liking, but I appreciate netgalley and Random House providing me with an advance copy of this book.

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. The writing is actually quite good but the subject matter couldn't hold my interest. I finally just stopped reading at 30% on my kindle. I rarely give up on a book, but I could not relate to any of the characters in this book. Rich, Robin, and Amy are some of the most unhappy dysfunctional, fictional people (I hope), that I have read about in a long time. Please don't allow my review dissuade you from giving this one a try. I recently read a book that received mediocre reviews that I absolutely loved as it spoke to me. One person's junk is another person's treasure.

This book just wasn't for me. I almost didn't finish it. I thought it might be a little bit of a lighter story but no the characters were very angry and just too negative for my liking.

A book full of unlikeable white men....(whispers....) i loved it.

Books aren't supposed to have unlikable characters. We, as readers, are supposed to fall in love with characters. The characters in "Who is Rich?" are ....THE WORST....and that's what makes this book great. It's easy to hate Rich...and I probably do.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

Ehhhhh..... I finished it, so it wasn't absolutely horrible. Did not hold my attention very well, a bit hard to follow. Thank you for the opportunity to read it though!

I received an ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

I'm not entirely sure why, maybe it was the cute drawing on the cover, but I was under the impression that this book would be a light, easy reading, comedy. Nope. Not even close.

If you are looking for a light beach read, this isn't it. This is a dissection of an affair, by an unlovable main character. But somehow, I kept reading. This is a well written account of two miserable people, attempting a shot at happiness.

I didn't enjoy reading this book. I almost didn't finish it.. Several times. After I was done I really wondered why I had bothered. There was not one character I could say was ok. Rich was a creep. A cheater. Selfish. Nuts. Amy was no better. Robin was also self absorbed and they all deserved the crappy life they all got. There were some moments of hilarity, humor....but the rest of it seemed like a free flow nervous breakdown ending with a trip to the mental ward. This book just wasn't for me.

I only got through approximately 10% of this book and found that it was just not my type of book. Unfortunately I decided to discontinue reading it at that part. It may be a fantastic book but just not for me.

It's not often I abandon a book, but I just couldn't finish this book no matter how many times I tried to keep reading it. I got about 50% through it I found it very difficult to like or identify with the primary characters and to become attached to their stories. While the prose was very well written and the author's style of writing creative, I didn't like the story like and plot at all. Huge apologies to the publisher...because my review may be an anomaly, I am not publishing on my blog so as not to dissuade others

I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The best part of this book is the humor. It is written through the eyes of the main character, Rich Fischer. He is a 42 year old cartoonist who peaked early in his career and then fizzled out. Now every year he attends an arts conference, and teaches a 4 day workshop. He is unhappily married to Robin, with two small children. Money is an issue for them and they basically tolerate each other. Enter Amy, who Rich had a fling with at the conference the year before. She is married to a Wall St. magnate who ignores her when he is even home. When she shows up at this years conference, they reconnect, and as you can imagine, a little chaos ensues. The writing is done well, but it was not my kind of book. Rich is very whiney, I found myself calling him Eeyore about half way through. The characters are interesting and as I said there was a good bit of humor throughout the story, it just was not my cup of tea.

2 stars

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was just not my kind of book. I didn’t like the man character Rich or anyone else in the book. Rich is a one-hit wonder cartoonist that leaves his wife and young children to teach at a week long summer conference. During this long week, we learn that Rich is obsessed with a rich woman that he met at the last conference. He has been having an affair with her since the last summer conference and in her sees an escape from the life that he has become increasingly dissatisfied.
The book is just one long whiney, self-indulgent rant by a man that is not happy with himself, his life, his family and his career. He is self-destructive, a narcissist and makes one bad decision after the next. It just wasn’t pleasant to read and I found myself skimming large sections just to get through the book.

The writing is well done and there is probably a market for this book. I’m just not it.

Hmmm. The book was well written for the most part, but...Rich, Who is Rich? Well, he is a self-absorbed middle-aged man going through a grand selfish period. He is very dislikeable and I found myself getting mad just reading about this ridiculous man, out galavanting around while his poor wife is stuck home breastfeeding the baby and taking care of the children, his children. His self-centeredness really put me off and I found it difficult to complete the book. I found my mind wandering, not wondering, which is not a good thing when reading a book. I do appreciate the opportunity given to me by NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group, to read an ARC for an honest review. Sadly, this book was not for me.

This was very disappointing. The sheer volume of names and characters made my head spin. I was very excited about the book and I was unable to muddle through the text.

Sometimes a book is a bad fit for a reader and I suspect this was the case.

Some might say I'm being unfair giving Who is Rich only 1 star seeing I only read 50 % of it, but I just couldn't take anymore. Matthew Klam writes of a man who is unhappy in his marriage and semi unhappy with his "mistress". Who is Rich? I found him self indulgent and an idiot. I was given an early copy to review.

"Who Is Rich" refers to the main character and narrator, Rich. Rich had found fast success as a cartoonist, but it was short-lived. Now he works as an illustrator--a big step down. The story begins with Rich giving a summer cartoonist class at a bankrupt Maine college for $1500 a pop. Rich complains he is paid poorly, his accommodations at the school are poor.

For most of the first 18% of the book, the author tells the reader what Rich thinks--about his colleagues, his students, his family, especially his wife--none of it complimentary.

My question is: Who cares?

Don't waste any of your time or money on this book.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an impartial review.

It is a falsehood to have Who Is Rich? posted on my READ shelf; it belongs on my Did Not Finish shelf. I tried really hard and read about 20% of this first person narrator novel. The problem was that I didn't enjoy any of it.

There is a danger with first person narrators - they can be oblivious to their frailties and are somewhat self-centered. In this novel, graphic novelist Rich Fischer is a returning teacher at a summer arts conference. Wife and children, along with the day-to-day realities of family, are left at home while Rich does the conference. Rich questions the future of his marriage while reminiscing about a flirtatious encounter with a past participant at the summer arts conference. His one semi hit graphic novel propelled him toward other opportunities but he has been unable to capitalize on these. Rich, personally and professionally, appears caught in a perpetual state of ennui.

Characters and plot line were not interesting enough to get me to continue on.

Summer Camp and Near-Fatal Attractions: On WHO IS RICH? by Matthew Klam

This novel drops the reader into the cauldron of a prestigious summer arts workshop, where the narrator, Rich Fischer, is teaching an "autobiographical cartooning" studio. Brimming with word play and precise, hilarious details, the plot roughly follows the protagonist's ill-advised plunge into an affair with an ultra-wealthy (Melania-type) art student named Amy. His indulgence is juxtaposed with flashbacks, musings, and wishful thinking about complex life with his successful wife, Robin, and their children who remain back home. "Then I felt bad because I really loved Robin and my two little zipadees. I could still make it right. If I had to break Amy's other arm, I'd get the bracelet back. My kids were the whole show. Without them I was lost. Without Robin my life was garbage."

Klam knots tension through each chapter, and I furiously turned pages wondering how the affair would resolve. The thing is, it never actually resolves. The narrator traps readers in the quicksand of his own self-destructive romp at summer camp, and there we remain. Holding a mis-placed pair of million-dollar diamond earrings and a heart full of "psychic grief".

My thing is usually literary women's fiction, so this dive into a a contemporary man's inner world was a stretch; the author successfully renders the interior world of a guy struggling to get a grip, a depressed artist on the verge of multiple emotional catastrophes.

Big themes here: fissures in contemporary marriage; limits of an affair; how suffering empowers art (and why); responsibility versus self-indulgence; summer arts workshops as a cauldron for all that is possible; misery-loves- company.

I especially love the scenes that take place in workshop, where Rich briefly engages with each student, encouraging them to further their cartooning craft to assuage their mistakes and misadventures through art, all the while doubting his own creative process.

I am returning this book unread. No time right now.

This book is on my “To Be Read” pile, it looks like a fun mid-life crisis kind of style and if it’s funny or quirky then I know I’m going to love it. Who Is Rich by Matthew Klam centers around a married, middle-aged cartoonist at a weeklong arts conference who falls for a married woman.

Here’s the synopsis:

Every summer, a once-sort-of-famous middle-aged cartoonist named Rich Fischer leaves his wife and two kids behind to teach a class at a weeklong arts conference in a charming New England beachside town. It’s a place where, every year, students—nature poets and driftwood sculptors, widowed seniors, teenagers away from home for the first time—show up to study with an esteemed faculty made up of prizewinning playwrights, actors, and historians; drunkards and perverts; members of the cultural elite; unknown nobodies, midlist somebodies, and legitimate stars—a place where drum circles happen on the beach at midnight, clothing optional. One of the attendees is a forty-one-year-old painting student named Amy O’Donnell. Amy is a mother of three, unhappily married to a brutish Wall Street titan who runs a multibillion-dollar investment fund and commutes to work via helicopter. Rich and Amy met at the conference a year ago, shared a moment of passion, then spent the winter exchanging inappropriate texts and emails and counting the days until they could see each other again. Now they’re back.

Once more, Rich finds himself, in this seaside paradise, worrying about his family’s nights without him and trying not to think about his book, now out of print, or his existence as an illustrator at a glossy magazine about to go under, or his back taxes, or the shameless shenanigans of his colleagues at this summer make-out festival, or his own very real desire for love and human contact. He can’t decide whether Amy is going to rescue or destroy him.