D is for Diary of an Oxygen Thief: Anonymous

I'm afraid I might have entirely missed the point of this novel. Frankly, I didn't see the point, but there must be one, because it's a bestseller.

It was quite easy to read through; overall I think it took me two hours to read. I appreciated the fact that there were only three chapters, because it forced me to finish it quickly. I would sit down and make myself read an entire chapter, so I finished it in three bursts.

I didn't like the main character. He starts out as a sadist and never really changes. His heart was broken, so he decides to break all other hearts in the world, one at a time. The whole novel consists of him explaining how he broke hearts and complaining about everything: the amazing job he got, the girl he fell in love with and broke his heart, the weather in Minnesota. It was just annoying to read all of his complaints. I suppose that's the point of a diary, so perhaps the fault there is mine.

I didn't particularly like the writing style. First of all, it was very difficult to figure out the order of the novel. The narrator often switches between past and present (or at least I think he does?) without any description or pause for the benefit of the readers. It's just really hard to keep track of where we are in time.

At what I thought was the climax of the novel, the narrator switches from first to second person point of view, and I really didn't like this. To throw such a change on readers at such an important part of the novel was frustrating to me. I was trying to keep up with his narration and then I had to switch points of view.

The narrator also digresses way too often: I'm sure this happens on every page. That in itself is difficult to get through but then the narrator continually apologizes for getting off subject and there's a great show of him trying to get back on track, which is just so muddy and difficult to trudge through. Maybe this is for comedic relief or something, but I didn't see the humor in it.

I did make myself think about what it means that the narrator is an "Oxygen Thief." At first, I thought he was stealing the oxygen of all the women whose hearts he broke. But then it became much more clear to see that he was stealing his own oxygen. Nothing is going the way he wants it to go in his life, and I think it's his doing: partially because of his own attitude, but also due to his laziness, his lack of self-control, and his general dislike for everything. Of course he has no oxygen. He's sucking everything out of the world leaving nothing for himself.

I can't decide if I'll read the rest in the series. I think the novel ended well. I should also mention that I find it very difficult to feel sorry for him at all in the end. He made it sound like he knew what was going on the whole time, and he had several occasions to end things, but he didn't. It wasn't necessarily his fault, but I do think he could have changed his story. When I'm done with my reading challenge this year, I might return to the series to see if anything changes in future books.