It's just such a shame that this amazing premise gets squandered. Thanks, Replay, for helping me to build empathy with how women feel in our society by being so terribly creepy? I think? Now I know what's like for women to watch or read most movies or books. It's painful to listen to this for hours on end. This is pretty much the textbook example of male gaze. And with the exception of his mother (because ew), even if Jeff doesn't sleep with a woman, he still thinks about sleeping with her, and the narrator describes her entirely in terms of how fuckable she is. The bulk of Jeff's replays focus on which woman he decides to shack up with and how well she satisfies his physical and emotional man-baby needs. Grimwood spends an inordinate time focusing on Jeff's sex life. That is, until you realize that's the case because they are all sex interests for Jeff. Indeed, it should be a laudable thing when I inform you that, aside from Jeff, almost every other character of note in this book is a woman. Oh, and then he gives that character a huge bag of money because he's breaking up with her, and she pity fucks him, because 'for $250,000 you deserve it.' What?īut this isn't just poor writing. You just don't say that, ever, with the possible exception of writing (bad) erotic fiction. At one point, pretty early on in the novel, Jeff literally calls a woman 'a machine made for fucking.' I could almost forgive that, but Replay is also just creepily male gazey. It is, quite literally, a maddening experience. Every time Jeff picks up a glass of wine or looks at an album label the narrator has to interject with some kind of commentary on the vintage or irrelevant facts about the career of that band. She's not just a woman she has pert yet simultaneously round breasts that rise just the right amount as she raises her long, slender arms above her head. It's not just a table it's a luxurious oak table with a fine gold inlay that Jeff purchased with money he won or got from investments or whatever. Grimwood feels it's necessary to describe every single thing in detail. I listened to the audio version (because that was the only version available from my library), mostly at 2.4x speed, and it still felt like too long.

Grimwood's prose is so purple I'm surprised it's not gangrenous. Because when you get right down to it, Replay has a sick and amazing premise, but Ken Grimwood's writing leaves much to be desired. And then I figured I might as well finish the whole thing just to learn why Jeff keeps replaying parts of his life. Just as I was starting to lose all hope, there was a glimmer a couple of hours in that made me hang on a bit longer.

For the first time in a while, I actually regret sticking out this book instead of DNF-ing it.

Replay book summary