I am so thankful to William Morrow Books, Tony Tulathimutte, and Netgalley for granting me advanced access to this galley before publication day. I really enjoyed the dialogue and plot of this book and can’t wait to chat this one up with my friends!

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

I was really hoping to enjoy this book more than I actually did. I started off really liking the book and was encouraged by the rave reviews and it getting longlisted for the National Book Award. However, at some point the book became a chore to get through and I had to really struggle through the last half. I know lots of people loved this book, it was just not for me.

REJECTION is a set of linked stories about people dealing with rejection in various ways. At times, it’s difficult to stay with the characters because their level of self-hatred–and their combination of hyper-awareness and lack of self-awareness–makes it deeply uncomfortable to relate to their experiences. I’ve seen reviews describing this as “a difficult read” or “like drinking paint.” But, it’s worth the read. While the characters are often mired in unpleasantness, the authorial intelligence behind every story is illuminating and captivating. The social and psychological observation, often filtered through an unreliable narrator, is so deft and spot-on that I cringed and laugh out loud. If you appreciate highly intelligent stories that have something to say about feeling uncomfortable, alone, or unworthy in our atomized, social media saturated world, this is a book for you. Even if you’re secure and comfortable in your own skin, if you’ve ever felt discomfort, these stories reveal and peel back the stories we tell–and open us to a deeper understanding of our selves.

Crude, provocative and may illicit visceral reactions. Though satirical, each story is full of uncomfortable, intriguing, true human experiences that, depending on the readers mindset, will cause deeper thought about how we affect others and how others perceive the way we interact with them. I had such conflicting feelings, like I shouldn’t be reading these vulnerable, personal things, but I also felt addicted to reading more and couldn’t stop. Not sure what that says about me. I stumbled through some of the way this is written, but the stumbling actually felt warranted here. Did I always understand what was transpiring, no; but never was I so clueless that I didn’t get the gist. A challenging read, but in the best way.

This book had me in a chokehold for about the first 40%, then it went wildly off-course and became bonkers in a way that even I, who likes some weird shit, couldn't keep going with. I'm all for absurdism, which this became in places, but when I started feeling like, "WTF did I just read?!" and not in a good way, I had to DNF. I kinda feel like a bit of a prude for saying that, but it is what it is.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review! I have never felt such a strong feeling of dread and well, rejection while reading this. Each character in this novel is trying to fit in, but they are just going about it in such a wrong way. We all know (or used to) someone who was like one of the characters in the novel. I had to put this down a couple times because it sent me into such an existential spiral. There is nothing a human wants more than to fit in, and reading an entire short story collection about rejection and being rejected really gives you food for thought.

I asked the National Book Award judges to give us weird and original short stories on the longlist, and let me tell you — they really said YOU GOT IT, GIRL with this collection.

Rejection is deeply uncomfortable and cringey but also refreshing and funny and smart. You have to be willing to get dark and look at the worst our online society has to offer, but you are rewarded with guffaws and things that make you think. It’s just plain excellent satire (and I’m picky). I know the ending wasn’t for everyone, but I like when things get meta and so I was into it.

This isn’t a book I’ll be able to recommend to just anyone, but if you’re the kind of person who follows the National Book Award, I think it’s safe to say there’s a good chance you’ll like (“like”) this book as much as I did.

This was a hard, yet thought provoking read. It was unique and unsettling but I have the feeling that this book will work its way into my thoughts for years to come.

4,5

Wow, this is one of the smartest and most thought-provoking books I read all year, but also very, very bleak.

It is a novel-of-interconnected-short-stories in which the main characters are invariably loners, not fitting in, being rejected or themselves rejecting society. It is as much about rejection as it is about belonging though, and wanting to belong.

The opening story, The Feminist, is for me the strongest of the book, about a young 'narrow-shouldered' man's unsuccessful search for a relationship. He holds all the correct opinions and still women seem to prefer 'wrong' men over him. From here the stories become less and less relatable, making you feel less and less comfortable.

It is about labelling and political correctness and holding the right opinions and criticism on that opinion....and it actually all got quite tiresome towards the end as it also is a lot to do about very little. I longed for some substance... But then the final section is quite strong and surprising.

Posted my review on Goodreads, but an absolute must read for people who are addicted to crashout characters. So much fun

REJECTION by Tony Tulathimutte ~published September 17, 2024

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This satirical millennial takedown had me laughing out loud, and feeling so thankful that I’m already married.

Thanks so much @williammorrowbooks for the gifted advance reader copy.

This book. This BOOK. Woo doggie. I don’t think anyone can argue that it’s not one-of-a-kind!

Our format: interconnected short stories/character studies/psychological deep dives.

Our three big themes: dating, the internet, and rejection.

Our over-the-top characters:

-a white guy determined to be a woke feminist
-a depressed girl who can’t get over her crush
-a gay guy with a unique fetish
-a cash-strapped tech bro
-a person who rejects all identity-defining labels
-a final surprise meta narrator

You guys know that I read a lot. And when you do a lot of something, you start to notice patterns emerging, certain elements repeating, and sometimes things can start to feel tired, boring, etc. etc. Sometimes I feel like Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada, saying, “Florals? For Spring? Groundbreaking.” All of this is a long way of saying, I really appreciate it when something surprises me.

This won’t be for everyone. But if you like satire, if you can laugh at the absurd, if you’re tired of florals for Spring, then I’m pressing this into your hands and saying good luck, and Godspeed!

Rejection is a collection of short stories, interconnected in various ways, all exploring different forms of rejection and its effects on the characters in depth. From the first sentence Tulathimutte’s impeccable writing captivated me. It was fascinating to get to know characters through their spirals and it was clear so much thought went into establishing the specific scenarios. Rejection is just not a happy feeling and the increasingly uncomfortable feelings were conveyed in an incredibly evocative way. Towards the end things got incredibly meta and I just loved it so much. I don’t always click with short story collections but this one was done so well.

Rejection is an electrifying collection of short stories dealing with nothing other than rejection - across seven stories we meet loosely connected characters each with their own conundrums. Some of these stories were what one would consider highly online, which I absolutely ate up. The juxtaposition of the stories was fantastic - my personal favorite back and forth was Ahegao, or the Ballad of Sexual Repression, with Our Dope Future where we move between an incredibly sexually repressed man to a man who is so lacking in shame that he believes he is the best partner ever as he love bombs and ultimately attempts to pyramid scheme his way into making a cult comprised solely of his children and their offspring. Re: Rejection was incredibly meta and I loved every word.

I highly recommend this story collection - if you are someone who enjoys reading about...perhaps less than moral characters but with absolutely fascinating psychology you're going to have a great time.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the copy.

Absolutely adored this bizarre, beautiful collection of *~spoiler?*~ interconnected stories. I am eager to dig into Tulathimutte's earlier work and to recommend this book to the discerning patron. The style and flow of these distinct but overlapping stories kept me glued to the page - just what I needed to get myself back into the swing of things this Fall.

one of my favs this year. almost every story was a colossal dark humored (and just plain dark) character study of, well, social and cultural rejection. i devoured it and it was one of those reading experiences where when i put the book down, I couldn’t wait to pick it back up because you didn’t know in what direction the author might be headed next. just absolutely bonkers and wild.

lovers of the unlikable protagonist look no further. for readers who loved moshfegh’s homesick for another world.

Rejection is an excellent book. If I read a better one the remainder of this year, I’ll be shocked. Tony Tulathimutte is an excellent prose stylist with a sharp eye for the sorrows of modern life. Every story paints the most pathetically human moments of people who want nothing more to be loved and the embarrassing, awful things they’ll do for it. They’re painful portraits of the everyday cruelty and inhumanity we knowingly and often unknowingly inflict on others.

Speaking of energy, holy cow. These fictions have enough static electricity to power a defibrillator.

Props to Tony for giving me the longest sustained full body cringe I've had while reading in a long time! I like that he doesn't try to redeem his characters and lets them sink even further into the messes they made because of their own hubris, and I will admit that the meta rejection letter for this collection was a particularly cute little touch. Highly recommended fall read.

This series of interconnected short stories is possibly one of the most effective and brilliant satires I have read recently. Rejection is both the theme and the object of obsession for each character. Tulathimutte's incredible grasp of hyper-specific neurotic behaviors allows him to portray the most unsympathetic people in the most nuanced ways. Let me give you a snapshot of some of the characters that populate Rejection. First, we have a white Nice Guy™️ who is a proud Feminist but also furious that no woman will sleep with him. Second, we have a selfish, entitled white woman who gives too much significance to a one-night stand to the point where she becomes quite unhinged. Third, we have a deeply introverted gay Thai-American man whose very niche fetishes keep him from being able to connect in real life. Fourth, we have a hyper-positive white entrepreneur dudebro who is constantly optimizing his life. Fifth is a nonbinary Thai-American prolific Internet troll who gives us their entire backstory... Or do they? And sixth we have Tony Tulathimutte himself in a very meta passage where he imagines this book being rejected by publishers.

If you like cultural criticism and satirical fiction, then you absolutely must read this book.

Whew! I don't think there has ever been a book like this written. Playing with form, POV, autofiction, and truly uncomfortable topics, Tony Tulathimutte has created a masterpiece (even if you have to cringe your way through it). I don't even know how to review this really. I had so many different opinions throughout, which I guess makes for a solid and accomplished novel? A wild reading experience is never a bad thing, but this book is at once difficult and hard to put down, hilarious and disgusting, and pretty genius at the end of the day.

Taking the form of short pieces lightly interconnected, we are taken on a journey through rejection (romantic, social, artistic, and interpersonal) via Tulathimutte's adept writing. The book is often too smart for it's own good, but that' snot a bad thing. The ending will delight and surprise you, and make you rethink what you have just read (which I love in any book). Just the cover, with the oddly placed "Fiction" clues you into the journey the reader is about to take. I can see why it's on the National Book Awards longlist. It's a trip that places with the novel as an art form, and you can't ask for more than that.