My Struggle, Book 1

I read the first page of this book in a bookstore and promptly bought it. It sounded fantastic! I was excited for it; I've been having a hard time recently getting into books and this one seemed full of potential from the little snippet I read. I started reading it in January.

I finished the book sitting at my kitchen table last night.

I must say I enjoyed the first and last pages more than the rest of the book. I'm still confused on what his struggle is. I assume it's related to alcoholism, but it's not really clear, perhaps it's just his entire life. He struggles.

Anyway, I wanted to like the book more but couldn't manage to. I also don't think I'll manage reading the other four books (or however many). I can see people liking the story and the book and even the author. But I couldn't handle him as a teenager. I know I should take pity on the teenager he was but when I was in high school the only people I liked less than popular people were people who worried about being popular but failed spectacularly at it. So much potential in not being popular, of not having it come naturally to you, and to have it wasted on efforts to fit in and be cool seems like such a shallow shame. Now that I'm older I'm much better at liking popular people and failed popular people, but it's hard not to view the story through the lens of my own childhood. It's like, we could have been friends but he wasted all of his time trying to get into parties and trying to find ways to consume alcohol. Such a bore. Man I'm fun. This paragraph says more about me than it does about the book or the author.

The writing (translation?) was fine. I did notice that he did something I feel like I do all the time in my own writing. I don't know how to say it other than "writing action as a list". He did opened the door, looked for some food, sat down, and turned on the T.V. I was very aware of it happening in this book for some reason. Either he does it more than other authors or I don't know what. But it distracted me.