WOW! Loved this story of the writer with ongoing writer's block who makes just about every "bone head" decision he could make! He's married to a successful writer / professor, and plays second fiddle to her throughout the book. His affair with his wife's best friend leads him into further trouble in every way. And he still can't seem to write any pages.

I loved the very cerebral nature of the writing, and I loved that this character went from bad to worse. It was all awful, and it was all wonderful! I read this book in record time - I couldn't wait to see how Ewell would finish the tale. The ending was surprising and perfect, and the more I think about it, the more I love it.

Highly recommend!!

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review Set for Life.

I enjoyed this author's writing style. He has an interesting and precise vocabulary that made for interesting phrasing. The story is character driven, keeping the reader involved in the story.

I'm not sure if it was the book I didn't like or the fact that I couldn't stand any of the characters! The main character (did we ever get his name?) was such a mess and didn't seem ashamed about it. Third tier college writing professor gets a job because his wife negotiated it for him, spends his summer drinking in Europe when he was supposed to be writing a novel (publish or perish), then comes home and has an affair with his wife's best friend... just yuck! All of it.

I read an advanced readers copy of Andrew Ewell's debut novel Set for Life from NetGalley and Simon & Schuster. I read this book pretty quickly, over a weekend. It hooked me from the beginning. An English professor returns from a summer "writing" in France after having basically put down nothing on paper. The protagonist is an assistant professor at a small liberal arts college in upstate New York, married to another professor who churns out novels every 2 years and is an academic super star. But he had not been able to accomplish much writing at all. Ok, simple plot. Sexual tension with the wife of one of his former grad student peers (who is also a close friend of HIS wife, an affair ensues which results in him making frequent trips down to New York City, trying to keep the affair a secret, far more alcohol being consumed than writing, and a sense of foreboding doom. Our protagonist (whose first name, by the way,is ever actually named!) is drinking more, and trying to navigate a love affair, tension from his wife, who is cold and distant, a department chair pressuring him to produce a book to satisfy tenure (and also being quite chummy with the wife, more alcohol, and so on.

As the book continues, you get this sense of dread. Could this man be any more pathetic? Could anything else happen to make his life worse? It was kind of a perfect shit show. You want to see a bright ending, you want to see him put pen to paper, to succeed. But it was spiraling entirely in the opposite direction. It was the type of book that was both compelling and which you can't put down, but was uncomfortable to read at the same time. Is there redemption at the end? You will have to sort that out for yourself. Maybe?

But now, I just want to go back through it and see if our protagonist actually has a name!

I loved this book, while at the same time feeling very iffy on the MC. As the story unfolds, my feelings toward him would change over time. At first I felt sympathetic. We've probably all had those moments where we wallow in our despair and bad fortune and even make a joke of it; reveling in drinking too much. But then the author turns it around to where we begin to despise him, just as everyone else in his life begins to as well, and it’s hard to know exactly where or when that happened.

He wants to blame everyone else for his problems and he wants everyone else to fix them. The story asks how far someone will go to no longer feel like a failure. To “publish or perish.”

I felt a range of emotions toward him and the other writers in the novel. It asks the question, who really owns a story, and who has the right to tell it? It’s bleak and funny and makes you reckon with what it takes to create a work of art. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but I really enjoyed this debut novel and would love to see what this author writes next.

This was not one I cared for at all and had to force myself to finish it.

Take a loser guy who is married to a go getter woman who has a teaching job at a college and has published a couple of successful books. Loser hubby is given a teaching job at the same college to entice the wife to work there, but it's obvious he is not worth it.

All is did was drink the summer away in Europe instead of writing his book and he doesn't even seem ashamed. He does not admit it to his wife or his boss. He decides he wants to have an affair with the wife of his best friend. Why anyone would want him is beyond me.

All of the characters are unlikeable with loser hubby the worst of them all. He spends his time drunk and day dreaming, but never doing.

I couldn't cheer for any of them. They deserve each other.
Thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy. THe opinions expressed here freely are my own.

I enjoyed this novel, although it falls into a category that appeals to me as a college professor: the disastrous life of a professor who must rethink his life after failing to publish. The fire in the office was pretty clearly foreshadowed.

This was a book filled with characters that were simply unlikeable.
Not one of them had any redeeming features. They were selfish, immature, and took what they wanted if it made for a good story that could be turned into a publishable book.
I had no sympathy for any of them. At one point, the narrator almost gets hit by a car, and I think that would have been for the best.

I want to scream at the main character “stop, you’re an idiot making a huge mistake”. However should he listen, it would be a pretty boring novel. And this novel is anything but boring, soo good. The characters are fully sketched out and each quirk and bad choice they make feels incredibly realistic. Hard to put this novel down and now I want to read other books by this novelist. Very entertaining.

From the beautiful cover to the last page, loved this love story. The story of a marriage coming undone and a new love starting up, faltering and perhaps coming back from the trouble. I'll look forward to talking with Ewell on Writers on Writing. Thanks so much NetGalley, for the ARC.