Elif Batuman's "Either/Or" offers an intriguing glimpse into the mind of a young woman navigating the tangled web of love, philosophy, and the absurdities of life. While I didn’t exactly find myself swooning over it, it definitely has its moments of charm.

The narrative meanders like a lazy river, full of sharp observations and wry humor, but sometimes feels like it’s lost its way—much like its protagonist. Batuman's prose is clever, often making you chuckle at the ridiculousness of it all, but there were times I wished for a little more direction.

The philosophical musings can be engaging, though at points they come off as a tad self-indulgent. It's like being at a party where someone is really into their existential crisis; fascinating at first, but you start to check your watch after a while.

That said, if you appreciate a book that takes its sweet time to explore the intricacies of youth and the angst that comes with it, "Either/Or" might just resonate. It’s not a must-read, but it certainly has enough quirky charm to keep you entertained—if you’re in the right mood.

I was just rereading The Idiot, which is one of my favorite books of the last decade, and even though I don't think it strictly needed a sequel this book is still worth reading if you loved the first one.

I wish I could reread this for the first time again. This was everything I needed in a sequel and it was PERFECT

Do you ever read something that leaves you feeling unbearably floored? That is what Batuman's writing does for me. I am vivaciously in awe of how talented and avant-garde they consistently are with their work.

This book holds such a specific, eminent place in my heart. This sequel to "The Idiot" is a brilliant masterclass in writing through its ability to mediate human experience to an audience in such a nuanced way that it feels fresh and unrestricted. This book is just so filled with life and Selin's journey struck such a chord within me that I took so many moments of this novel to sit back and reflect on my own experiences growing into adulthood, especially as a woman, and navigating the academic world in juxtaposition with the societal realities I was submersed in. I loved how naïve, irreverent, and grotesque Batuman allows Selin to be, it comes from such a place of adoration for young women and the vile transition into adulthood they persistently have to face. This series only continues to get better, and I am hoping for another installment to Selin's story. This is truly Batuman's magnum opus.

A great sequel to The Idiot. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found myself laughing out loud at times. Highly recommended.

I absolutely loved this one! Seeing Selin's journey progress is everything I wanted and I love the wit this is written with. I was nervous about the sequel but this one was a breath of fresh air.

The sequel to Bautaman's The Idiot continues Salin's journey through college in the aftermath of a failed non-relationship.

Salin struggles through school in an attempt to find meaning. Russian Literature, her focus of study, highlights most of her actions and stories. A philosophy class brings her to Kirkegaard's Eithe rOr, the title of this book. One must decide if one will lead an aesthetic or ethical life. Asides like this dominate the work. It is peppered with Russian literature metaphors of her own life. She seems to be living in her own head through most of the narrative. She only breaks free of the literature and her family at the very end. Taking her first steps.

A nostalgic book for me as most of this takes place in the 1990s, which is a good early internet time since it is very easy to ghost someone. I enjoyed the literature and philosophy jointing together. The narrator's life is slow, and she seems naive and timid to move forward. Without the literary references, it would be a very slow read.

A way you can tell you are reading a Batuman novel is that you become so consumed by it, that every time someone says either, you cannot. help but say, OR! and vice versa. We are following Selin in the second year of her university as she continues to find the meaning of life in the art she consumes, and how that plight fails to provide results, just as in the first one.

A very interesting read. The narrative makes you feel as you are part of the book as it comes along. Its queerness is implicit, about a young woman who does not yet really have a concept of bisexuality as an option.

This was a very though provoking read and super strong followup to The Idiot. First round purchase for large libraries.

This follow-up to The Idiot continues with the story of Selin and her experiences in college and life. Selin is a fascinating character that is extremely relatable at times and completely frustrating at others. If there's another after this one, I'll definitely pick it up.

Either/Or is that book you read over and over, each time finding something new. It's so chock full of intricately interesting and pensive thoughts. The dichotomy between the frivolous and deep meaning is masterfully told. So many quotable passages. This relatable, deep coming of age story is a rare find.

I received an ARC of Either/Or from Penguin Press in exchange for an honest review.

Oops! I did the thing I promised myself I would never do: I requested a book without realizing it was a sequel. After receiving Either/Or and recognizing my mistake, I frantically scrambled to acquire a copy of Elif Batuman’s The Idiot, which had been languishing in my TBR since its release in 2017. But it all turned out for the best—The Idiot took its rightful place amongst my all-time favorite novels, and although Either/Or didn’t quite manage to capture that singular magic, it proved to be a worthy follow-up that will certainly rank in my favorite books of 2022.

Either/Or is almost impossible to review without putting it in conversation with The Idiot, so let’s start there. The Idiot follows a young woman named Selin in her first year at Harvard in the ‘90s; it is a deliberately meandering novel, a book that intentionally has no point, which, of course, is the point. Selin constantly questions why the world is the way it is, her naïveté and genuine curiosity tantalizingly poised on the precipice of cynicism without ever falling. Her narration is like the literary equivalent of semantic satiation—poking and prodding until the things we experience every day lose the cultural baggage that ascribes meaning to them.

Batuman describes Either/Or as a “comically literal” sequel: it follows Selin during her sophomore year at Harvard, in the wake of her relationship with Ivan. Either/Or is a more reflective novel than its predecessor, more concerned with processing the events of the previous year than anything else. (The Idiot and Either/Or are almost structurally identical to Joanna Hogg’s films The Souvenir and The Souvenir Part II, respectively, and they’re not far off in terms of content either.) Although a part of me was disappointed because I essentially just wanted The Idiot again, a bigger part of me was grateful Batuman chose a different tone for Either/Or. For all its similarities to The Idiot, this is a book which has its own identity.

The Idiot is by far the funniest novel I’ve ever read. Either/Or still made me laugh more than most books, but the humor has been toned down—whereas The Idiot made me laugh once or twice per page, that ratio was perhaps once every two pages in Either/Or. I don’t think this is a failing on Batuman’s part. It’s not that fewer jokes land in Either/Or, it’s just that there are fewer jokes: this is a more somber, more melancholy book (I’m tempted to call it “more mature,” but I don’t believe Selin would agree with the application of that particular term—not because it’s inaccurate, but because it has connotations I think she would reject). It’s the black to The Idiot’s white, the yin to its yang, the jelly to its peanut butter, and it complements through contrast.

But I want more! I would have been happy with The Idiot as a stand-alone novel, but now that there are two, I need to know what happens to Selin in her junior and senior years at Harvard. Honestly, I would read a book about every year of the rest of her life (no pressure, Batuman). But if this is the last we see of Selin, she still gave us two of the best works of literary fiction to be published this side of the 20th century; revitalizing a genre that has been mostly stagnant for several decades is no small feat. Batuman is one of the most accomplished authors working today, and I am thrilled to give both The Idiot and Either/Or my highest recommendation.

Made it to 62% before I just couldn’t soldier on anymore. I was only lukewarm on The Idiot but I can say with certainty that it did not need a sequel. Meandering, pretentious, plotless… Ultimately, there were things I did like, mostly the character of Selin. She very much reminded me of that time of being 18/19, around other academically-minded and intelligent people and feeling as if I'd simultaneously found my place in the world and become extremely lost. Overthinking the slightest action and trying to make myself feel smarter by referencing/trying to relate to the most obscure literary/cultural references was part of that identity, so I really have a soft spot for Selin. However, I feel about this book how I feel when looking back at myself then: how annoying! It's only interesting to the person living it, which means Either/Or was a big old mess of "WHO CARES? GOOD GOD, GROW UP!" even though, you know, the only way to grow up is to wait for time to pass. In other words, this is a realistic book in many ways, but one that's tiresome (and that's being kind) to read. By all means, feel free to PM me spoilers if anything interesting happened in the last 40% because I just couldn't keep on trucking.

This is my review from goodreads.
INCREDIBLE !!
“isabel’s values made sense to me. she wasn’t interested in ruining destitute women, or electroplating a tortoise. she wanted to fathom the human condition. she valued reading, travel, and relationships with radically different people: the kinds of people who didn’t necessarily get the point of each other. at some point, ralph asked what isabel saw in henrietta, and isabel said that she liked people to be different from each other, and that , if a person struck her in a certain way, she liked them. i, too, had friends who found each other annoying and incomprehensible, and some of them really could be annoying, but they all struck me in a certain way- and that was why i liked them, that was why i loved them. isabel said that was the ‘supreme good fortune’: to be in a better position for appreciating other people than they were for appreciating you. thinking of the people who populated my life, who acted, spoke, and viewed the world so differently- mesut, juho, lakshmi, riley and all the others- i recognized how important it was for me that i could understand them all, at least a little bit, and better than they could understand each other. was that what a novel was: a plane where you could finally juxtapose all the different people, mediating between them and weighing their views?”
a masterpiece. Bravo

I am literally reading this book for the 3rd time now; it's wonderful. Selin is sassier, a bit more uninhibited, and quippier for season 2. This novel feels fresh, and from the first few pages I can really tell this is *sophomore* year. Although this too can be described as the kind of book where nothing really happens, there is a very clear sense of forward momentum jumping off from The Idiot's ending.

You know that "young alienated woman" genre of book? I absolutely reject it, and I don't think The Idiot or Either/Or belong in the same category as My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I fundamentally don't see why characters with a sorta-negative affect have to be considered similar to each other. As a protagonist, Selin is underratedly charming and winsome. These books are a lot of FUN and I believe that gets overlooked sometimes.

Anyway I relished this novel and very much appreciated getting an e-ARC.

I'll admit, this book had been receiving so much hype and positive press through TikTok and Instagram that I was VERY excited to read this ARC! Unfortunately I failed to realize that Either/Or is a sequel to Batuman's The Idiot, which I have yet to finish. I'm not certain I'll be able to finish both its prequel and Either/Or in time for its release date, but from what I know of Batuman's writing, and what of The Idiot I have read thus far, I know this book will be great. My library has copies of The Idiot and already has Either/Or on order; I fully intend to promote both through Readers' Advisory. Thank you to Netgalley and The Penguin Group for this ARC!

4.5/5 Stars

It’s not often that we get sequels to literary fiction novels, but I’m extremely glad that Selin’s story from THE IDIOT was continued in EITHER/OR. After her first year at Harvard and a summer pining after Ivan, Selin is back in Boston, trying to make sense of her feelings. Again, she turns to the classics to figure out the concept of attraction and what to seek in life.

I loved returning to Selin’s head in this book and her cerebral way to dissect every situation and motivation. Given that it’s the not quite rational process of sex and attraction she’s trying to understand, this book made for a thought-provoking, but no less entertaining, read. BATUMAN is able to put so many situations in a different light with her shrewd observations and clever descriptions — I found myself chuckling while reading many of the pages.

Overall, EITHER/OR is a smart, funny, and cerebral continuation of Selin’s story. Truthfully, I would love to accompany Selin for many more books as she comes of age and finds her place in the world.

A great follow-up to The Idiot. The storyline is much more linear/less meandering than I expected, and in some ways it reads like a pared-down version of the first novel, but Batuman's prose is, as ever, excellent.

I love Selim. She's just delightfully odd. I want to be her friend. I was expecting Ivan to come back and this to be more traditionally romantic but life doesn't work that way!