Spiritless But Actually Not | Kyle Mitchell

Maybe this book just wasn’t for me. I don’t know…I found some parts exhausting to read. Maybe it was the mostly unlikeable characters or all the constant barrage of “fuck” fucker” “motherfucker” etc… but I found it really hard to care about anything or anyone in any of the stories.

It felt like this book was always shouting at me. Every character was yelling, screaming, suicidally depressed, high, or having some kind of heavy experience… yet they never seemed to actually do anything, just talk on and on and on. If you’ve ever met a narcissist or someone with a borderline personality disorder that just likes to talk and not say anything, that’s what this book feels like. It talks a lot but doesn’t seem to say anything and when a story is finished you’re left thinking huh hm okay…you’re stunned and don’t realize what just happened. Was that the entire story? Yes, it was.

While the author can clearly write, I don’t like ultra-modern slang, emoji symbols, and acronyms like LOL in my stories. It disrupts the flow, constantly reminding you of real life. It’s hard to lose yourself in this book. I think maybe I’m just not young or hip enough for this book so it doesn’t resonate with me…? Too many “dudes” and “bros” and talking about crypto in one story… or the douchebag DJ and stripper in another whose entire conversation was just…ugh…I won’t go into it but they were unlikable tools, especially the DJ, the worst.

So what did I like? For the most part, the stories had their good points like decent descriptions/wording here and there such as “An October day, under the caliginous sky…. We ventured through lengths of overgrown wheat into a crumbling parking lot… actual hot pinks and neon greens, crowded lightless beneath shallow asbestos’d ceilings… sapid with manufactured exuberance…”

The formatting is beautiful. The title is interesting. But in the end, it just wasn’t for me. I can say for sure that I’ve never read anything like it. So take that as you will.