Made for Love audiobook

"A robot officiated at my wedding," said Hazel. "Let me start there."this is one of those books where if i try to summarize the plot, it will sound like the opium dreams of a maniac. which i'm fine with for myself, but then you might dismiss this book as the opium dreams of a maniac and steer clear

There is no one who negotiates the absurd as vigorously yet poignantly as Alissa Nutting. In her second novel, Made For Love, Nutting explores the loneliness of a future overly mediated by technology through a tremendous romp involving Hazel, trying to leave her tech mogul husband Byron even though his reach knows no bounds. There are sex dolls and a senior citizen trailer park and brain chips and a con man who loves dolphins and still, the story makes sense like a motherfucker. Brilliant, dense, hilarious writing that hurtles toward an ending that is both satisfying and unexpected.

My first Alissa Nutting read, but I'll be back for more! The first chapter showcases some of the best writing I've ever seen. Hilarious, character-driven, perceptive social commentary. It has everything. The second chapter was even better. The plot turned out to be less gripping than the first few chapters suggested, but it provided a superb context for Nutting to incorporate her hilarious commentary on technology of today and how it might look in the future. This is a farce at its finest, for the most part, but I will be honest that I became un-hooked part way through due to a stagnant storyline. By the end, the conflict remains the same and the situations become a little too ridiculous to fathom. As long as you can appreciate brilliant writing, you'll love this book. If you need a strong storyline you might skip it.**UPDATE: once again, HBO is able to breathe fresh life into pretty good source material. The new TV series of this is fabulous in tone and wonderful in adaptation. And I will say Adaptation. The book is recognizable, but significantly altered. All for the better. Looks like Nutting worked on the screenplay, so that makes sense. Also explains why we haven’t seen any new novels from here recently. Have fun with this one, book, show or both!

I've been looking forward to this book all year and it did not disappoint. Alissa Nutting is a genius of the absurd, hilarious and straight up bizarre; she takes a sledgehammer to societal norms and never shies away from uncomfortable taboos.At 35 years old, Hazel abruptly leaves her psychologically abusive husband Byron Gogol, the multi-millionaire CEO of a monolithic tech company not entirely unlike (you guessed it) Google. With nowhere else to go, she moves in with her septuagenarian father and his newly acquired sex doll—a better alternative than staying with Byron, who has threatened to take control of her entire mind as part of an innovative new experiment.Meanwhile, a handsome conman named Jasper, who relies on his Jesus-like appearance to scam wealthy women into falling in love with him, has a near-death experience in the ocean one night and from that point forward can only be sexually aroused by dolphins. (Yes, you read that correctly.)With Byron spying on her move and threatening to harm her loved ones, Hazel grows increasingly desperate to escape his grasp for good. Ultimately Hazel and Jasper's storylines intersect in a surprising but strangely logical way, and it turns out they may be able to save each other.Made for Love is an delightfully odd trip from the opening sentence to the final page. Nutting's unrelenting strangeness and deviance isn't for everyone, but it is certainly for me. I ate up every last word. Beneath the entertaining absurdity is smart commentary on the intersection between technology and human connection, and a poignant dismantling of the cultural norms we come to expect from stories about love and relationships.

No one makes me more uncomfortable to be a participant in human sexuality than Alissa Nutting, and I mean that as an enormous compliment. She commits to ideas with fervor and wit, and even though those ideas are funny & wild, they still feel true to her cast of characters. I doubt it's even possible for her to write something boring, and god knows this book never is. It is a delight.

This book fed the deranged part of my soul.It is partially about a sex doll named Diane, but let’s not get bogged down in the details. I recommend this clever, quirky, comical and irreverent take on human connection and increasingly invasive technology. The premise might be absurd, but there’s a bit more to this story, I promise.

Wow… I have so many thoughts

My third favorite Nutting book, but still well worth reading. Since the other two were unputdownable, I was eager to devour this promising example of her style.My first impression was that Hazel's directionless attitude of bum-in-the-making makes her a prime victim of Byron's manipulative control, and waking up to his abuse allows her to grow a decision-making organ before her brain became entirely vestigial. Nutting's books contain casual sex as a prominent feature, a protuberant preoccupation, but an idiosyncratic one what with her quirky kinks and kinky quirks. Bowel-tightening family dynamics are also not uncommon tropes in her arsenal.The narration began to feel heavy-handed by the third chapter with excessive asides. I felt less control over the prose light show as she had exerted in Tampa. Still, most sentences accomplish several tactical satirical deployments, and rely on cheeky, absurd overstatements or character inner monologues relayed in an innately charming way. At times the style grows obnoxious but is overwhelmingly seductive at others.Her artful use of hyperbole and the apt hallucinogenic metaphorical oddball comments make for delightful surprises. This becomes a parable of technological enslavement, exploitation, leaving our main character with hard choices, so multiple times she chooses the lesser of two evils. The digital ingenuity of certain plot points with soft sci-fi elements are calibrated to amuse and simultaneously comment on some aspect of society.I hesitate to call it a brilliant satire but it is a refreshing change from the traditional realism of today's literary fiction. The incorporation of near-future tech speculation and vivid imagery peg it as a stand-out work. Hazel and her dad are fire crackers, undignified people with glaring insufficiencies. Their living arrangement is gripping for the awkward third wheel of the sex doll, leading to their competing interests and both of them longing for a refuge from their insecurities. In the flashbacks to Byron's mogul mansion we discover a hysterical futuristic bathroom, weird headgear, corporate saboteurs, eventual spies, and a connection to Jasper, the on-the-run dolphin boy. Jasper's sections appear unrelated at first, and also unrealistic, since scamming woman with his method in this day and age would not be as easy as he makes it out to be unless the women were specifically desperate, very young, or otherwise incompetent.The phantasmagorias of Nutting's descriptive speculations reach absurd lengths and require disturbing leaps of the imagination but serve to thrust the novel into cerebral territory. She is constantly jousting with the reader, daring them to follow her through every rabbit hole train of thought. If you fully commit to immersing yourself in the bonkers flights of fancy you can grow accustomed to the absurdist wit behind the imaginative escapism in every sentence.Nutting understands a fundamental trait of writing that many other writers miss. That is, 95% of sentences are missed opportunities to thrill and engage your reader. She applies this principle to a fault, deploying zingers every step of the way. When her storytelling leave plot holes and her characters make decisions worthy of B-grade horror films, we must turn to her writing to propel us through the book.

One of my favorite genres is "Excuse me, but WTF???" and this absolutely fits the bill. I have meant to get around to Nutting and I don't know why it took me so long but I'm glad the new show gave me the jumpstart. As is often the case with WTF books the less you know going in the better. Nutting is playing with a whole lot here: tech companies, surveillance, kink, dying, and more. But the reason the book works is that these are really just trappings to the central story of Hazel, a woman who had a bad childhood and took marriage as a way out of it. It's not at all an uncommon story, and if at first it's hard to understand why Hazel made the choices she did, by the end of the book you really get it. I love a book that I never know what it's going to do, and I love even more when it has a strong emotional center to it.You have to be very open for this book to do absolutely anything. Because it does. Content warnings for suicide, zoophilia, stalking.I did the audio which was fine but nothing to write home about. (The reader is one who does male voices in a way that always bugs me.)

wow. as a person who has experienced emotionally abusive relationships and controlling exes who stalked me multiple months after break ups that resulted due to their repeated out of pocket behavior, the way alissa nutting was able to make this dystopian absurdist tale resonate in a very deep grounded real place is truly masterful and awe-inspiring. she is one of the most talented working writers alive, imho, and doing things few others are in the writing space. truly inspired work and wholly a stan of her brain and how it works. this is my third nutting work, i first read her short story collection, unclean jobs for woman and girls, which i absolutely loved—specifically the short story, ant colony, which i think about daily and think would make the most incredible A24 horror film; and her first novel, tampa, which is a genderbent nabkov’s lolita meets easton ellis’s american psycho meets gus van sant’s to die for (1995) but also somehow not any of those things and entirely it’s own singular thing that just has you sitting there after you’re done reading thinking, “wtf did i just read and why was it also brilliant??????? am i broken?????” this novel was just next level incredible. there are essays and essays and essays that could be and will be written about this text for years to come and i just feel so blessed to be alive while alissa nutting is publishing work. i cannot wait to read what she writes next. there are so many things i want to say about this book but i also just don’t want to say anything because it’s so hard to describe????? and also everyone deserves to experience this story first hand unspoiled. i read this after i finally binge watched the hbo max television series of the same name that was adapted from this novel and falling in love with it. i highly highly recommend the show starring cristina milliotti (how i met your mother, palm springs) and ray romano (everybody loves raymond), which was unfortunately unjustly cancelled after two seasons but still completely worth the watch and ends on a very poetic satisfying note regardless. i just can’t wait to read more alissa nutting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hope she publishes something new soon!!!!!! because i will EAT IT UP 🤍🤍for fans of ottessa moshfegh, mona awad, han kang, yun ko-eun, melissa broder, haruki murakami, banana yoshimoto, john waters, raven leilani, anna dorn, samantha irby.also shout out to my high school bestie for “teaching” me about malcom brenner and dolly when we were in college, which is all i could think about the entire time i was reading the book jasper storyline so it didn’t feel at all too outlandish or impossible/implausible at all. never thought that knowledge would come in handy/be useful in any sort of way so…lmao 💀 loving that for the both of us 💀 obviously, plot spoilers if you google malcolm brenner prior to reading the novel so google at your own risk !!! ⛔️

delightful in a fucked up way. which is what i like in my Nutting. this book is like one of those movies by weird, oddball directors like Raising Arizona type business or Big Lebowski sort of. Now I want to have sex with both dolphins and dolls. Thanks, Obama!

Read this one cold. That's my best advice