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You Don't Love Me Yet
A Novel
by Jonathan Lethem


7.0

based on 14 reviews
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based on 1 vote
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Lethem's romantic farce is an affectionate send-up of the alternative band scene, the city of Los Angeles, and the entire genre of romantic comedy.

Doubleday, 240 pages
03/13/2007
$24.95

ISBN: 038551218X

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Boston Globe Boston Globe

Where [Lethem’s] extravagant love for New York in "Motherless Brooklyn" and "The Fortress of Solitude" was matched by an equally wide-screen scope of narrative, he has shrunk himself to fit the narrower confines of his new book. He is too large a writer to make himself so small.

Chicago Tribune Art Winslow

Its light approach...and brevity leave You Don't Love Me Yet seeming more of an extended sketch than a fully developed novel, but the flux of Lethem's ideas turns the book into a fun divertissement.

Entertainment Weekly Ken Tucker

A melancholy comedy of raucous manners. With minor-key brilliance, Lethem describes how alluring pop is crafted in a state of joyous tedium.

Los Angeles Times Deborah Vankin

Although it's decidedly lighter in tone than Lethem's more recent novels, with a spry, frolicking rhythm--breezy, even--it's still smart and funny, providing a biting satirical take on the intersection of art and commerce, integrity and façade.

New York Observer Celia McGee

Since [Lethem’s] reworked his life growing up in the not-Manhattan again and again--with diminishing freshness--it was definitely time for a change...An entertaining novel. [12 March 2007, p.14]

PopMatters Chris Barsanti

It’s a quickly devoured and quickly forgotten fiction with little resonance, which may be exactly what Lethem needed to deliver.

The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Zsuzsi Gartner

A cultural essay in the guise of an entertaining, sexy little novel.

Washington Post Joe Heim

This may seem the makings of a fairly flimsy plot for a novel, and in many respects it is. But then this is less a novel than a cultural manifesto about plagiarism.

Houston Chronicle Edward Nawotka

This slick, entertaining novel offers a relationship with the writer and his characters far more satisfying and serious than mere "Astronaut Food."

Village Voice Zach Baron

Lethem is as lucid about art here as he is anywhere else. But You Don't Love Me Yet asks us to delight in the borrowing of that which doesn't always seem worth taking.

Publishers Weekly

[An] entertaining but largely insubstantial romantic farce.

The New York Times Book Review David Kamp

I’m all for slight, easily digestible novels, but I daresay this one is a mite too parenthetical.

The Onion A.V. Club Donna Bowman

[Lethem] fails...to produce a story or characters that can house these well-observed experiences. Instead, he shores up his book with a truckload of cuddly oddities. It's a missed opportunity for a talented but perhaps overextended writer.

San Francisco Chronicle Heller McAlpin

You Don't Love Me Yet isn't anywhere near Lethem's best, but maybe we had been set up for disappointment: Our expectations were so high. [21 Mar 2007, p.E5]

The average user rating for this book is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Dan H gave it a7:
I've been a Lethem fanatic for years and have read all of his major works, and this is just not as good as the rest of it. It is worth reading, but if you haven't read any Lethem try Motherless Brooklyn, As She Climbed Across the Table or Fortress of Solitude first. The more I've thought about this book the more I like it. But that does not change the fact that it isn't nearly as good as the rest of his work. Still lesser Lethem is still really good.

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You Don't Love Me Yet A Novel by Jonathan Lethem

You Don't Love Me Yet
A Novel
by Jonathan Lethem