Rounded up from 3.5 stars.

Like "Look Who's Back," Timur Vermes's first book, which I loved, "The Hungry and the Fat" is biting satire just shy of absurdity. I didn't enjoy this one as much, though. The middle part sagged and dragged, so much that I almost lost interest in discovering how it was all going to play out, but then the final third or so redeemed the rest of the book. The ending was both surprising (to me, anyway) yet inevitable. The entire thread involving the embedded women's-magazine writer, her beyond-purple prose, and her absolute self-centeredness was brilliant. The conceit of not giving the names of a few of the main characters seemed arbitrary and distracting, and the descriptions of the settings outside of Germany were too vague for my tastes. The entire conceit, however, was original, thought-provoking, and in parts very very funny.

Thank you, NetGalley and Quercus, for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.