Set for Life is the debut novel from Andrew Ewell that follows an unnamed narrator after he returns from a writing retreat in France. When things don’t go as planned and he ends up coming home without a book, he begins unraveling his life slowly, making questionable decision after questionable decision until things hit rock bottom.

I enjoyed this book despite it being out of my comfort zone. I think this is a book that will impact different people in different ways. If I was someone who was really struggling to find my place, I believe this would have hit a bit harder. The narrator and most of the surrounding characters are very unlikeable but in a way that feels true to life. I am a huge fan of characters that are flawed and aren’t picture perfect because it allows room for growth and I do think we see some growth in this book.

I think the strength of this book is the subtle way mental health is dealt with. As someone who has dealt with mental health issues in the past, I found the way the narrator viewed his mental health to feel very realistic.

I think the writing is fantastic if a little bloated for this story. I would really reading this author’s future books as I think that I will really enjoy them.

This novel is a strange duck. I don’t mean that in a bad way, just a hard one to wrap my head around. On one hand I enjoyed the writing and think the author is very talented, but the story itself feel a little flat for me. The main character is not thriving in his career or marriage and makes every bad choice he can possibly make. He is canceled and reduced to his lowest point. I think the author was trying to make a point about cancel culture, privilege, and society as a whole, but it all just felt a little muddled.

“Set for life” is a story of a deeply flawed man whose narcissistic personality, depression and alcoholism has slowly eroded his professional and personal life. This personality and character flaws are not only driving his decisions in the book, but is one of the main themes throughout the story. The fact is he is not satisfied by his lot in life, but also is not taking any responsibility for it. The book is well written and the characters are well developed, with poignant exploration on his character flaws, but at the heart of the book, he is unlikeable with little self awareness making the book hard to enjoy all be it easy to read. I kept hoping that he would redeem himself, but in the end, the character remained true to his character. You may enjoy this book if you enjoy deep dives into very flawed characters

I found "Set for Life" to be a very well-written novel. Its upstate New York and New York City settings are well described. It has a distinct plot and well-defined characters. The prose and dialogue are clear and serve the story well. Its satiric humor sometimes made me chuckle.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"Set for Life" takes a unique approach by presenting a protagonist who, at first glance, appears deliberately dull. The main character's job, marriage, and writing career all exude a mundane quality, painting a picture of a seemingly unremarkable life. However, as the narrative unfolds, it becomes evident that this deliberate choice serves a purpose, offering a character study in contrast to conventional protagonists.

The central figure is a dreamer with ambitious aspirations, content with inertia and seemingly uninterested in altering his lackluster circumstances. The narrative skillfully explores the character's prolonged stagnation, portraying a person comfortable in self-pity and prone to making questionable decisions. The overarching theme, as perceived by this reviewer, delves into the profound impact of depression and mental health issues on one's entire existence.

What sets this story apart is the nuanced portrayal of the protagonist's mental state. While those around him, including a friend who is a psychologist and a psychology professor with a penchant for gossip, recognize his depression, the character himself seems oblivious or resistant to acknowledging the extent of his struggles. The novel becomes a subtle exploration of the complexities surrounding mental health, offering readers a reflective and thought-provoking journey into the effects of depression on both the individual and those in their orbit.

In essence, the author masterfully weaves a narrative that challenges conventional expectations, using the seemingly banal life of the protagonist to delve into profound themes of mental health, self-awareness, and the intricate interplay between personal struggles and external perceptions.

Debra has her stuff together and is the reason for the hire at a college in New York and why they hire her mess of a husband. He travels to France to write a novel and comes back without a word. The writing was ok; it just was not my taste.

He was so unlikable. Had his redemption story been longer than the last 15%, maybe we could have started cheering for him sooner.

A thought provoking novel that follows the life of a creative writing professor at a small, third-tier college in upstate New York.When he and his wife move from Chicago to Eastern College in Halbrook, NY he has dreams of becoming a famous novelist. Instead, it is his wife who is the successful novelist and it is in her shadow that his writing is stymied and he is unable to shine.

A three month sabbatical in France resulted in his consuming a lot of good food and great wine; however, he did not produce his promised book. Now he is back and his department chairmen is looking for him to produce is he wishes to become tenured. Within months of his return it is clear that he and his wife are out of sync. Yet, one constant remains, she is finishing up on a second novel, one that promises her even greater success. Worse, the fictional unmotivated protagonist seems to be none other than himself which begs the question of whether or not each of us owns our own story.

Although the book starts off well and was an enjoyable read in the beginning, there is a lot of repetition. Ironically, much like the main character, the author seems to have lost his way. This it seems is a prototypical case of art imitating life. After all Ewell tells us, “Reality never lived up to my imagination.” ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest evaluation. #ARC #AdvancedReaderCopy Publication Date: February 6, 2024 #emptynestreader #instagram #SetForLife #AndrewEwell #fiction #NetGalley #SimonandSchuster #tragicomic #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagramalabama #bookstagrammichigan #bookreviews #bookreviewer #bookrecommendations #DecemberReads #readalittlelearnalittlelivealittle #ebooks #librarybooks

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this ARC!

WOW! The writing style is great. Such a good story. It kept me interested in the book. I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would.

While this was not my "normal read", the summary grabbed my attention and I just had to read it. The main character.....Yikes. Hot mess and I felt like he was in a constant alcoholic fog. While the writing was good, the story wasn't my cup of tea and I did not care for a single character.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the advanced reading copy and opportunity to give this book my honest review.

This was an interesting read. It was interesting watching the main character float through life, just making do, until eventually everything blew up in his face. Instead of taking any responsibility for his actions, he blames everyone around him. I enjoyed the growth he had once he hit rock bottom and actually began to take responsibility for his life.

I didn’t manage to make it all the way through ‘Set for Life’. I found the humour and the characters a little bit jarring.
I really like the cover though!

I received an ARC of this debut novel through NetGalley.

This is a quirky book that I had a hard time putting down. Highly entertaining, fast-paced and thought-provoking.
The unnamed main character and narrator is a slacker, a writer who can't get anything published (or written, for that matter). He is married to a highly successful author and, riding on her coattails, he gets a job as an assistant professor, alongside his wife, at a small college in New York.

The main character has goals, but no ambition, if that makes any sense. He and his wife are friends with another married couple, the other significant characters in this book. That friendship gets complicated as, like with most anything the main character does, he makes a mess of things.

I asked myself several times while reading this why I was fascinated by this loser. But as time wore on, he was learning some life lessons that helped make this a satisfying read. I was a little disappointed by how the author ended things, but still rate this book highly. Four stars.

I had mixed feelings about this book. It seems to be a new addition to a cadre of new tales of cutthroat academia, its politics, and the pressure to publish. The foundation for this story is solid. A young writer teaching at a university will have to publish a book if he wants to stay there. It is also true that negotiating the politics of your department can be very dicey.

That being said, I felt like I’d read this before. A story told through the alcoholic haze of a man doing everything he can to speed up his downfall is familiar. Interestingly, the protagonist isn’t even given a name. Everyone else has one as well as a description but not him. I thought that was very telling.

This is the set up. A young married couple leaves Chicago to come to a third-rate college in upstate New York. Debra, the dazzling wife who knows how to upend the system is the one they want. They hire the husband because they want her. She more than exceeds their expectations. She easily publishes, conducts great media interviews, and cultivates success very easily. Plus she is attractive and the chair has the hots for her.

And then there is the poor schlep husband.

Although… as the book opens he is coming home after a three month writing residency in France. Not too shabby. He, of course, blew it off and didn’t write a word. He comes back to the pressure of his failure and the subsequent pretense that will have to follow. Before he even gets back to Debra and his college, he begins an affair with Sophie, half of the couple he and Debra consider their best friends.

Most of the rest of the book, he is drunk and engaged in all the behaviors that further contribute to his downfall. It is only the last ten or fifteen percent of the book—the attempt at redemption— that I felt engaged with.

I don’t know how to rate it. The writing is good. Although the other characters are seen through the eyes of one of the most unreliable narrators I’ve read, they are clear. Stereotyped, but clear. The wife, totally self-involved. The department chair trying to be fair but with ulterior motives. The girlfriend, as damaged as our protagonist.

I’m giving it three stars. The author is a good writer but the story is unoriginal and I think its appeal would be narrow. It's been called wryly funny. I guess I just didn't get the humor. I’d like to try his next one.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the advanced reading copy and opportunity to give this book an honest review.

SET FOR LIFE by Andrew Ewell is a tale of self-destruction. Meet our narrator, a boring English professor, in a boring town, at a boring college, with a boring life. He should be "set for life"—he has a wife, dog, steady job—but something is missing.

After returning from a trip abroad, on which he was supposed to begin writing the novel he promised to the English department chair upon his return, our narrator is drawn in by a woman from his past and wonders if his life could be different. Maybe he could write a bestseller, and secure tenure at his college, if he were married to Sophie instead of Debra. But, in a self-destructive spiral, our narrator learns the problems that come with having everything you want, and wanting what you can't have.

Written in sarcastic and witty prose, SET FOR LIFE is for the writer who has struggled with writer's block in the past, or for those intimately familiar with the worlds of academia and publishing. Slow at the start, but hard to put down at the end, the plot will hook readers who enjoy a story of hubris and hamartia but isn't likely to engage readers who cringe when characters make bad decisions.

This was a most unusual book - it took me quite a while to realize the the author chose to make the main character boring. His job was boring. His marriage was boring. He was boring. His writing career was non-existent. But he was a dreamer with grandiose dreams! He was perfectly comfortable with doing nothing to change his situation for far too long, seemed to relish wallowing in self-pity, and poor choices. The most prevalent themes (to this reviewer) was highlighting the effects depression and mental health issues can have on one's entire life. Everyone except him see realizes he is depressed and needs more help than a friend who is a psychologist and psychology professor who also tends to be a gossip.

"Set for Life" by Andrew Ewell is a wryly funny and moving novel that skillfully captures the complexities of marriage, art, friendship, and the fictions individuals create to shape the person they aspire to become.

The narrative centers around a creative writing professor at a third-tier college in upstate New York who, after spending three months in France on a summer fellowship, is returning home. This professor has been using his time in Bordeaux to indulge in various distractions, such as sampling French wine, instead of making progress on his long-overdue novel. His journey takes an unexpected turn when he stops in Brooklyn to visit his closest friends, John and Sophie. John, a former poet turned lawyer with a questionable moral compass, and Sophie, a once-promising fiction writer with a mysterious allure, become integral figures in the unfolding drama.

As the professor and Sophie find themselves entangled in a love affair, the narrative explores the protagonist's search for freedom and escape from the challenges he faces in his professional and personal life. The novel skillfully delves into the character's internal struggles, from dealing with colleagues and students to navigating the complexities of marriage with his wife, Debra Crawford, a successful novelist.

Ewell weaves a brilliant tale that blurs the lines between art and life. The protagonist's escapades, while potentially destructive, also serve as a source of inspiration for a novel that could catapult him into the literary limelight. The story raises thought-provoking questions about ownership of one's narrative, the creation of fiction from lived experiences, and the pursuit of success in the cutthroat world of academia.

The humor in "Set for Life" is both clever and poignant, providing readers with a thoroughly engaging and entertaining experience. Ewell's debut novel is a tour de force that explores the fine line between reality and fiction, all while delivering a fresh and satirical take on the challenges and aspirations of the modern writer.

This is an interesting one for me to review, because although I admired the writing, I don't think I've ever been asked to spend time with a more delusional, self-serving, absolutely dreadful main character! But I genuinely thought it was exceptionally well done here. I've seen books even in the past year that cover this same territory - an unlikeable aspiring writer, who is an unreliable narrator - and I've had issue with many of them. This one sometimes falls into similar traps, but by and large the reader is well-aware that our narrator is terrible and we're just along for the ride.

A lot works - the setting, the length, the pace - but I did feel like we were robbed of some closure just as far as Sophie and her book and relationship with John were concerned. Obviously we're entirely in our unnamed narrator's POV so it's hard to accomplish this, but I do think given that he maintained a friendship with John that there would have been an opportunity to get some exposition on how the fallout affected Sophie beyond just "she moved back to Ohio."

4 stars. Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC.

I found “Set for Life” to be a very well-written novel. Its upstate New York and New York City settings are well described. It has a distinct plot and well-defined characters. The prose and dialogue are clear and serve the story well. Its satiric humor sometimes made me chuckle.

That being said, “Set for Life” is a novel I often had trouble enjoying. Ultimately, however, it’s a novel that’s kept me thinking.

The “blurb” does a thorough job of explaining the plot, so I won’t attempt to duplicate it. For the purpose of this review, suffice it to say that the novel stars and is narrated by a very flawed character. He’s an English professor and novelist who, plagued by depression and alcoholism, spends most of the novel disassembling his life piece by piece. He’s a writer who can’t write, a teacher who can’t teach, a husband who can’t remain faithful, a lover who can’t commit, and a man who can’t find a purpose. It doesn’t help that he’s a habitual liar, both to himself and those depending on him, or that he’s completely self-absorbed, and, for most of the novel, seems wholly unable to learn or grow. (In fact, he’s so flawed that he never reveals to us his own name.)

As for most of the rest of the characters, while they’re well-drawn, they’re equally dislikable, fueled as they are by greed, ambition, and self-interest.

Clearly, author Andrew Ewell set himself a tough task: keeping us readers engaged in a story about a debauched and failing protagonist-narrator surrounded by friends, lovers, and colleagues who, for the most part, are just as morally bankrupt. Ewell accomplishes that task by giving his narrator a darkly humorous personality and voice, one that excels at communicating the absurdity of his situation (even if he is wholly unable to correct that situation). As a reader, I could not admire the narrator’s actions, but I liked the way he told the tale and thereby came to care about him. The question that kept me turning the pages as he bounced from one failure to the next was: will he ever be able to redeem himself and, if so, how?

I found Mr. Ewell’s answer to that question surprising yet familiar: and one which made “Set for Life,” for me, a worthwhile reading experience.

My thanks to NetGalley, author Andrew Ewell, and publisher Simon & Schuster for providing me with a complimentary ARC. The foregoing is my independent opinion.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the chance to read and review Andrew Ewell's 'Set for Life.'

A writer's-blocked author and assistant professor - whose name we never learn - at a second/third tier upstate NY liberal arts college finds himself in a crisis born of his inability to write, his novelist and tenured professor wife's work ethic and success, his reliance on her career for his position, and his disappearing youth and approaching middle age.

This is not an overly original novel - there are clear hints of Nathan Hill (even the cover is very reminiscent of Hill's latest, "Wellness') and Richard Russo in the tortured world of academia - but it is very enjoyable.

The unnamed professor embarks on a series of 'adventures' that are either consciously or unconsciously designed to destroy his career, his marriage, his reputation (such as it is) and his life in general.

None of the characters, except maybe Sophie (and his Florida motel-owning parents), are universally likeable but they're all really well written and fleshed out.

An easy, enjoyable read.

Not sure about this book. Do we love him for his screw-ups or in spite of them. Too much stupid stuff. In the end not my cup of tea. Sorry.