Expected to enjoy based on descriptions, but generally found it a meandering and unengaging mess. Should have just been a did not finish.

This book reads as a novelisation of a tv series with (mostly) cardboard characters.
I’m deeply perplexed on how this book was deemed worthy of such an advance other than marketing reasons (young but too young Brooklyn author, too many pages, the thought of Pynchon and DeLillo): the language and the prose is mediocre at best, and while that may work with a certain kind of, say, detective fiction, Hallberg does not manage to make the hybridation of genres work here: the novel is too interested in depicting New York City as a character herself that lacks the audacity to provide interesting and well rounded characterisation to the actual characters, and is too concerned with a poorly structured plot revolving around one "life-changing event" (and clearly a great hook for the book) to actually delve a little more than superficially on the life and form of New York City in the 70s. It’s a touristy book in all the worst ways.

My feedback comments have gone missing! I reviewed this title previously yet it still appears in my list, "GIVE REVIEWS"