Book 201: Less by Andrew Sean Greer

I will remember this book forever, for two reasons:

• I felt so close to the character in his bumbling yet determined exploration of the world to find himself.
• Nothing could have surprised me more than the twist at the end of the book. (For all of you "reverse readers" out there, do NOT read this book backwards. But DO read it twice.)

Andrew Sean Greer, you are a freaking artist. I absolutely loved this book.

The story of Arthur Less and his extraordinarily bad search for meaning through world travel is one that will leave you teary-eyed. You might be crying because you're laughing so hard, but it could also be because he is so desperately naive and sweet that you want to reach out and hug him.

I'm not totally sure that Greer was doing this on purpose, but I felt that Less was written to show all of us that we are not in control of anything within our lives. Life is total chaos. Sometimes that chaos works out to our benefit, sometimes it embarrasses us so badly we want to crawl into a hole and die.

Whatever its intent, Less is a hell of a book, and one I would highly recommend.