I bought this the day it came out... just because of the author... the cutie pie greasy haired lead guy in Reality Bites.

I read this book twice within a month of having it. and have reread it multiple times since.

Its one of those cute, heartbreaking, poor guy sort of quick reads.... I wanted to be the girl that broke this kids heart. I wanted to be the girl he pined for. I wanted to be the girl that picked up the pieces and put him all back together again.The girl that he treated like shit so i could treat him like shit back. Its everything a relationship-gone-bad-gone-good-gone-bad should be.

If you havent read it, you really must.....

Romantic, conversational, believable, evocative.

Perfect summer read. Oh, young love, it can be so crazy. I love Ethan Hawke's writing style, detailed, descriptive, hypnotic. He's one of my favorite actors too, so this was a delightful surprise.

Easy to read but soooo misogynistic and male gaze-y it was actually painful. Every character is insufferable and every other line of dialogue was an eye roll. The narrator is the epitome of toxic masculinity but it’s excusable bc he misses his dad AWWW :( bitch grow up. BAD IDEA.

a lot of the critical reception for this are along the lines of: “to think a handsome hollywood heartthrob wrote this” … this is exactly the kind of lived-in character study that can only be written by 90s ethan hawke.

william’s done dating “obviously beautiful” women because he’s moved to new york and wants to rally against convention. he makes a long standing point that sarah looks “off”. she’ll do.

but the romantic gestures don’t land with sarah. he’s too impressed by himself and wonders why she isn’t.

hawke shows that the sunnier side of the romantic outlook has its shadows. you can have your ex girlfriend crying to you about the abortion she had to have because of you but maybe don’t drown her out by thinking of how stunningly globular and clear her tears are.

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.

Hawke should stick to acting.

This was not a good read. There probably will be spoilers in this review.

This was basically r/niceguy the novel. The main character is so incredibly unlikeable. William is sex-obsessed, oblivious, selfish, and misogynistic. He only likes women for what they can give him, for what they look like and their sexual appeal. He is also aggressive and violent. He literally knocks over Sarah’s refrigerator when she breaks up with him. Like ?? For what? When he is upset, he destroys things. There are multiple occasions he thinks about physical violence towards Sarah and Samantha.

There are occasions of sexual assault that the book wants me to think is romantic, like when Sarah was asleep. Can William only get off when girls are sleeping??

William also stalks Sarah. He wants to “get the last word” or “show his strength”. He yells things outside her window after she’s made it clear she needs space from him. So weird. It totally reminded me of r/niceguys because despite all this, William and his mother refer to him as a “great” or “nice” guy. William blames everything on Sarah.

There was also a really weird sequence of gay panic that William was having, which would have been more understanding if William actually ended up being gay or something. Then, this obsession with the F-word and being “manly” would make a bit more sense. Even his weird anger and hostility towards outwardly LGBT people could be explained away as internal homophobia. But, nope. We have William’s downhill spiral and then it’s never really brought up again. Add homophobic to William’s list of undesirable traits.

William didn’t really go through any character development by the end of the story. He is still rather selfish and he still sees women as objects. I don’t understand what the point of this story was. If William did all of this awful stuff then changed, then yeah, I would understand why that stuff was in the book. But, from what I read, William doesn’t change.

I have had this book on my book shelf for years and wanted something quick to read—I would not recommend this book for anyone, unless you’re a guy wanting to know how exactly not to behave.

I actually finished this in one sitting and I must say that it was a definite page turner. I tried to see the rating here first before reading this because I wasn’t expecting that much from the actor Ethan Hawke. After reading the first few pages, I knew immediately that he was a very good storyteller. There was depth in his characters as well as the plot. Reading from the main character’s perspective and his hopeless romance with a mysterious woman makes it an enjoyable read.

Toxic. Just complete and utter misogynistic horseshit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... people regularly rip this overly achy bit of fiction to shreds. But not me. I love every word. And I have since the first time I read it. It's a regular read for me, every few years I pull out my copy and indulge. Generally over the course of a single day. I even carried around my copy at Sundance this past February on the off chance I ran into Ethan Hawke. I didn't.

This isn't a love story, it's barely even a story. You'd think that something would happen in a 200 page book but nothing happens. Might enjoy if I were a 17 year old boy lusting for a girl who wasn't interested in me.

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