Honestly truly trash but very enjoyable. This main character is such thinly veiled Ethan. The gender politics are questionable at BEST but there are some good lines that are surprisingly touching.

It was good. Very much slice of time I think many of us go through in our "youth".
He writes kinda "rough" if I can use that as an adjective.

I just loved this. Gen X love.

If you are running out of reasons to find Ethan Hawke annoying, hunt down a copy of this and try reading the first chapter or two.

I think it's fucked up how characters like William in The Hottest State will sometimes be considered passionate or tortured when really, when you look at all of the information laid before you, you can see that they are just manipulative, neglectful and abusive.

This book is basically about a boy, who thinks he's a man, whine and complain as the girl he likes dares not to like him back. How dare she, right? How can she even think it? He's all charm and swagger, is he not? So how can he overcome this? Call her a bitch for not wanting to hang out with him. Make her feel small for not wanting to have sex with him. Think, multiple times, about raping her for his own sordid pleasure. Actually attempt to rape her. Succeed in raping her. Smash, break, throw and destroy things in a fit of childish rage when she finally frees herself from him. Stalk and harass her to show her what she's lost. Then finally he believes he's better than she is and can continue his life. Brilliant, Mr. Hawke. Brilliant. You deserve a Pulitzer. 1/5

Worst. Book. Ever.

exquisitely written short novel: this man can write. A rather atypical love story, unrequited love that is, written by a male about his inability to make the object of his affection respond as he'd like. I'm finding it hard to put down.

Honestly pretty dumb. Beginning was fun, then got dumb. Makes me love Ethan Hawke even more though, this bad first novel of his.

Surprise, surprise, surprise. Ethan Hawke can write, well. His debut novel perfectly captures the essence of being young and in love and then the pain of breakup. I felt deeply those little moments of first falling in love, the uncertainty and self doubt as you wonder what is it about me that she sees. Am I good enough, are we good enough. The story changes dramatically as their relationship turns. When Samantha decides that she isn't really ready for a relationship, Will's reaction is unhealthy, to say the least. The tragedy of youth is that Will doesn't have the life experience to strip away the personal feelings about him from her feelings about where she is as an individual.

I cared about William and Sarah like I haven't cared about characters in a while. They've both loved and lost, their home lives were disastrous, but they both are alive, but in differing ways which is why I felt drawn in. As the story progresses and it becomes more of Will's story and less of theirs, we see more of how his past affects his ability to rationally approach relationships.

There are many perfect moments of dialogue. Between William and Sarah, in the short scene with them and Sarah's elderly mother, with William and his friends. Hawke has a great ear and puts it to good use here.

This is not a criticism of Hawke, but there is an easy connection between The hottest state and Reality Bites. Not the stories, but the character would fit well at a party together. Both works have a heavy Gen-X feel to them.

I picked this up on a whim almost entirely because I like Hawke, particularly the 90s indie and theatre actor version. I'm glad I did look forward to reading more.

What I like about these little known novels is that you don't actually have big standarts for them.
With well known books like Perks of Being a Wallflower people is always like "OMG this is the best novel in the worl", and those novels usually try to touch a lot of themes: love, lost, drugs, alcohol, sex, parents, friendship, blabla. And you usually have something with lots of glue.

But here we have a "male" version of crush and first time you really love and lost someone. Hard and all, but I liked that it was like a normal life. Not a big world change for everyone.

Good ending. Also, I'm pretty sure Manson Fifteen is related since the protagonist also has a birthday while on chapter fifteen.

I really enjoyed this book. Ethan Hawke's writing is fantastic. It flows so smoothly and effortlessly that you want to read it straight through; which is what I almost did. The story was realistic and captured my attention right away. I look forward to reading more books by Ethan Hawke.

Apparently this book doesn't actually exist in print...anywhere. But if it happens to show up, I might read it.

Really enjoyed this book! The dialogue was fresh and realistic, so much so that the both protagonists annoyed me at times (not even going into that night in Paris...) William definitely reminds me of some men I have encountered in real-life, unnerving and endearing in equal measure, and it was exciting to be transported back to the 90s and the big and intense feelings one has when falling in love for the first time, it made me feel all the feels! And I'll definitely read more by Ethan Hawke.