109. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

….meh. Tree of Smoke was so much better. 

This isn’t a bad book. It’s probably even a good one. But I expected more (perhaps wrongly) from a Pulitzer winner. And instead of liking any of these people, I longed for Denis Johnson’s characters the whole time. And, kick the poor Sympathizer while he’s down, but I also just read The Disinherited, which also pitted the lure and peril of Communism against each other but in a gnarlier, more heartbreaking way. And well, even a nice sailboat sucks when you’ve just been on yachts. 

Confession: I finished this on Jan 1 but I’m counting it as my last 2024 book bc I didn’t want to get stuck looking at it as the first book in the 2025 IG highlight. 🫠 #2024books