Private Citizens

By: Tony Tulathimutte

Narrated by: Pete Cross

Capturing the anxious, self-aware mood of young college grads in the aughts, Private Citizens embraces the contradictions of our new century: Call it a loving satire. A gleefully rude comedy of manners. The story's four whip-smart narrators - idealistic Cory, Internet-lurking Will, awkward Henrik, and vicious Linda - are torn between fixing the world and cannibalizing it. In boisterous prose that ricochets between humor and pain, the four estranged friends stagger through the Bay Area's maze of tech startups, protestors, gentrifiers, karaoke bars, house parties, and cultish self-help seminars, washing up in each other's lives once again.

©2016 Tony Tulathimutte (P)2016 Dreamscape Media, LLC

A draft, of sorts, for his masterpiece rejection

Quite interesting to see how the elements of Rejection, present here, are later polished into a much stronger work. This book does reflect his mastery of the language and his insights into human behavior. The story line and characters don't quite hit the mark.

Fun, witty, self-aware writing.

Loved the writing but the plot was a little thin. It does a good job of capturing a slice of life in the early 2000s for a very particular group of young adults, but I came back for the writing, not the plot.

I loved every word!

Tulathimutte’s debut novel is a depressing retrospective of San Francisco millennials traversing the technocratic hellscape of intimacy and identity. Fabulously narrated. Phenomenal story.

An amazing snapshot of SF at the time.

Four protagonists, none of which are particularly sympathetic, yet all very interesting.

Note to narrator: “marIN” not “MARin”.

Too dour and cynical.

I couldn't finish. The characters in this book are so disgustingly dour, cynical, self-absorbed, and pathetic that I couldn't bring myself to spend one more minute with them. The characters, being a reflection of the story itself really are the story, and it was just too painful. The writing itself is very good, and so is the narration. I just don't have the fortitude to keep going.