I’m not someone that always needs characters to be likable. I’m all for a good anti-hero. However, the main character of “Set for Life” was so frustrating that it made the book a slog to get through (even at a brisk 256 pages).

I totally get what Andrew Ewell was trying to do with this novel about a creative writing professor who’s languishing in his ultra-successful wife’s shadow. He’s a frustrating, misogynistic, white male with tons of privilege who would rather waste his potential (and everyone else’s time) rather than get off his butt and be a productive adult. But this character had basically zero redeeming qualities (going on to hurt every single person he comes in contact with). Unless I’m mistaken, we don’t ever learn his name, which made it all the more difficult to connect with this person in any way.

As the book progresses, every single event is foreshadowed and predictable. Every personal downfall the MC experiences is not only easy to guess, but also very much deserved. I found myself rooting for every other character in the book (even the ones that are set up to be somewhat villainous). But even the secondary characters are annoying – they react in super unrealistic ways that made me feel like shouting at them.

There were also issues with the way events were presented. The reader is made to feel as though a great deal of time has passed within the story, and then we learn that it’s only been two weeks. Or one event that will have a lot of fallout isn’t resolved until many pages later. This leads to an uneven feeling that made me more annoyed than intrigued.

Nearly all of the adjectives used to describe this debut – “funny,” “moving,” “poignant” – were completely off-base in my mind. I couldn’t wait to be done reading it. The only thing that kept this from a one-star rating was that I think Ewell did a decent job depicting the life of a writer and what that quest for success is like. Otherwise, I’m ‘set for life’ with this writer.

2 stars

*Free ARC provided by Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review*