Little Failure is a memoir I read for class, meaning that it isn't a book I chose to read or would normally pick up. I also had to read this book all the way through in a little more than a week, so that experience may have also affected my opinions of it. The story follows the journey of Gary Shteyngart as he moves from Lennigrad to New York as a child, his relationship with his parents and being Jewish and his college experience.

For me, personally, I think the first half of this book is the strongest. This is where we get the most detail about Gary's childhood, his relationship to his parents, and about Russia/America. I hate to say it, but I almost feel like this book would have been stronger to me if the second half was scrapped and used in another memoir. The final chapter where Gary returns to Russia with his parents would have felt more circular and complete, while as it stands now, it feels like a forced ending to wrap the book up.

I wanted more about his relationship with his parents and less of his relationship to alcohol and drugs. I was inclined to be less interested in his relationships with women when he hardly talks about them unless it's in relation to him and his sex life. (Which, I get this is about him and his experience, and he didn't seem to know much about them, but he goes into a lot of detail about his male friends... So...) I almost missed the fact that he's married since he hardly gives any detail about his wife.

I can understand not wanting to get too personal if they're currently together, but that also calls to the question: is Gary too young to have written a memoir? I don't want to say that age should determine when you can write about your life experiences, but I feel it's disingenuous to write about your current/recent experiences due to how influenced you are by being in the moment. There are things you can't see when you're currently experiencing a moment.

I guess that just returns to my point; I think he should have made this memoir about his relationship with parents and his childhood, and saved his wild college and relationship days for another memoir. It might also be nice to space out his "humor" because to me it was too much. It's all very self-depreciating and painful to read, so having it marketed as hilarious isn't quite accurate.

I gave this book a 2-star rating on Goodreads. I've heard his fiction is better, so maybe one day I'll give that a shot.