the love affairs of nathaniel p.

The real reason this novel gets four stars is Hannah – a pretty, smart, nice, and unwaveringly authentic female character who loves and learns and lives. The narrator, Nate, pales in comparison to the very thoughtful and well-developed Hannah, and maybe that’s the point, since the whole text has that tongue-in-cheek aura of a woman writing from the perspective of a male character. Waldman’s writing is great, sometimes poetic, but I can’t help but wish that we could have skipped all the pretentious and intellectual-elitist thoughts and ramblings of Nate (who decided to deem him “literary”? he’s more accurately “journalistic”) to get to the heart of Hannah, who essentially carries the plot and creates an insightful, fascinating story of what it’s like to look for love in contemporary New York.