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Muscle Man
A hilarious, suspenseful metaphysical thriller following a day in the life of an English professor who would rather be lifting weights from the author of the cult hit The Novelist
Harold, a middling literature professor at a liberal arts college, lives in a state of dissatisfaction and fear. His colleagues and students evoke nothing but disgust and disdain. None of them understand strength, power, and spiritual actualization like he does. His university’s campus—seemingly picturesque—constantly threatens to reveal something sinister.
Over the course of a single afternoon, he wanders the halls, sits in meetings, steals from a student, and goes to the gym—all while reflecting on his professional and existential situation. With every line of Harold’s frenetic consciousness, his mundane routine transforms into something more foreboding, culminating in an ingenious twist.
Brilliantly imagined and darkly funny, Muscle Man is as much a critique of resentment and contemporary masculinity as a satire on the state of higher education, exploring weakness and strength, rationality and irrationality, the spirit and the flesh, and the individual and the collective.
With his minute-to-minute occupation of Harold’s existential disquietude, Castro imbues the novel’s philosophical inquiries with thrilling suspense. Is Harold a raving lunatic whose disdain stems from his own perilous inadequacies, or is there something truly sinister about his colleagues? When all is said and done, is strength a virtue, or a mirage?
Harold, a middling literature professor at a liberal arts college, lives in a state of dissatisfaction and fear. His colleagues and students evoke nothing but disgust and disdain. None of them understand strength, power, and spiritual actualization like he does. His university’s campus—seemingly picturesque—constantly threatens to reveal something sinister.
Over the course of a single afternoon, he wanders the halls, sits in meetings, steals from a student, and goes to the gym—all while reflecting on his professional and existential situation. With every line of Harold’s frenetic consciousness, his mundane routine transforms into something more foreboding, culminating in an ingenious twist.
Brilliantly imagined and darkly funny, Muscle Man is as much a critique of resentment and contemporary masculinity as a satire on the state of higher education, exploring weakness and strength, rationality and irrationality, the spirit and the flesh, and the individual and the collective.
With his minute-to-minute occupation of Harold’s existential disquietude, Castro imbues the novel’s philosophical inquiries with thrilling suspense. Is Harold a raving lunatic whose disdain stems from his own perilous inadequacies, or is there something truly sinister about his colleagues? When all is said and done, is strength a virtue, or a mirage?
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First published September 9, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
October 2, 2025
this was Extremely Male.
September 28, 2025
i’m very surprised this ended up being a 4 star book for me - i did not enjoy the first part at all, but i let it cook and it won me over by the end. for me, the parts about lifting were superior to the parts about academia, but these two aspects came together fairly well by the end and i feel that this is a book i’ll be thinking about for a long time (or at least the next time i pick up a pair of weights)
September 2, 2025
Very good book, recommended.
You can read my full review + listen to my 2-hour author interview here: https://t.co/7xg7kxoY65
You can read my full review + listen to my 2-hour author interview here: https://t.co/7xg7kxoY65
September 21, 2025
Part gothic novel, part absurdist fiction, part postmodern, metaphysical thriller. All muscle.
Castro’s hilarious novel satirizes the rise of the masculinity virility cult, the manosphere. Harold, Castro’s main character, is a sociopathic Dostoevskian figure, an English professor plagued by neuroses, laden with muscle, bereft of authenticity, and beholden to a deeply cynical view of the world.
This is an unsettling book. Like reading Notes from the Underground or Crime and Punishment, the book’s protagonist is an unsettled man. But he’s a mirror. Monsters reveal to us what we are. Castro shows us that we are both him and his creator, the underbelly of a society we unintentionally create. Though we want to reject Harold, we (ought to) end the book recognizing far more of ourselves in him than we’d like.
Harold’s salvation isn’t found neath the crushing weight of the bench press. And nor also is it found in the (equally crushing) impotent halls of academia. So, where is it? Muscle Man leaves us unsure. Perhaps it is in the novel’s subterranean text: forgiveness heals the soul.
Castro’s hilarious novel satirizes the rise of the masculinity virility cult, the manosphere. Harold, Castro’s main character, is a sociopathic Dostoevskian figure, an English professor plagued by neuroses, laden with muscle, bereft of authenticity, and beholden to a deeply cynical view of the world.
This is an unsettling book. Like reading Notes from the Underground or Crime and Punishment, the book’s protagonist is an unsettled man. But he’s a mirror. Monsters reveal to us what we are. Castro shows us that we are both him and his creator, the underbelly of a society we unintentionally create. Though we want to reject Harold, we (ought to) end the book recognizing far more of ourselves in him than we’d like.
Harold’s salvation isn’t found neath the crushing weight of the bench press. And nor also is it found in the (equally crushing) impotent halls of academia. So, where is it? Muscle Man leaves us unsure. Perhaps it is in the novel’s subterranean text: forgiveness heals the soul.
September 18, 2025
I was so eager to read MUSCLE MAN by Jordan Castro since I loved his previous book The Novelist which was so funny and this new novel was filled with humour as well! I really enjoyed reading this book! There were several funny moments throughout such as an awkward encounter with a woman at the water fountain in the gym, trying to make a joke in a faculty meeting and imagining making a YouTube video. The main character’s inner monologue was so funny and entertaining. I’ve already recommended this book to someone I consider a muscle man. I think he’d get a kick out of this book too. I can’t wait to read more from this author!
Thank you to the publisher for my copy!
Thank you to the publisher for my copy!
November 7, 2025
It took a minute for this to get going, or if I were to be more honest, for me to grasp what it was doing. But after finishing, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It left me with a lot to reflect on.
Harold is at a difficult point in his life. As a literature professor at a small liberal arts college, he is grinding against the culture he's found himself in. His days are capitalized with teaching, grading, and enduring tedious, pointless "intellectual" conversations with his colleagues who clearly don't respect him, but that's not where his passions lay. He'd rather spend his time in the gym with his only friend and colleague Casey. Casey taught him the benefits of going to the gym, how one's focus on their own power is the only thing one can really control, and whomever has the most power is the most successful. Sure, he worries about tenure and his writing, but as long as he can push for his next PR, that's what will really set him apart from his annoying colleagues. Taking place over the course of one afternoon, we sit intensively within the mind of Harold as he ruminates, spirals, exercises, and ultimately starts connecting the dots about who he has become, who he can trust, and how he got here.
If you would have asked me how I was feeling about this book at the 50% mark, I would have said it was probably a 2 star, and that would be a GENEROUS rating. I figured this would be introspective, but I wasn't prepared for how stream of conscious this would be as we sit in the mind of a man who is clearly unwell. Kudos to the author for writing what I found to be a realistic portrayal of a mind that is on the brink of a psychotic breakdown, but on the other hand it just... wasn't interesting. The entire first half takes place probably over the course of 45 minutes as we listen to Harold ruminating, philosophizing, and spiraling. It was repetitive and slow and painful. It was clear that the author was trying to convey... something. But it wasn't coherent at all.
But I think the second half really redeemed it. Again, the whole second half probably takes place over the course of about two hours, and while we are still solidly in Harold's spiral, he's more grounded (on account of him being in the gym for most of this part), but it is where the story starts to solidify. The author's intent becomes more clear and what he's trying to satirize takes shape. While he seems to be satirizing both manosphere and "woke academia" in equal regard, the allegory pays off in the end. It made me reflect back on the first part to see what all I "missed" with regard to the author's intent while I was mostly bored.
Do I think the author intended for the first part to be so weak and the second to be so strong? No, I don't. And I don't think the second part ultimately "redeemed" the book, but it was much stronger than I expected it to be.
Harold is at a difficult point in his life. As a literature professor at a small liberal arts college, he is grinding against the culture he's found himself in. His days are capitalized with teaching, grading, and enduring tedious, pointless "intellectual" conversations with his colleagues who clearly don't respect him, but that's not where his passions lay. He'd rather spend his time in the gym with his only friend and colleague Casey. Casey taught him the benefits of going to the gym, how one's focus on their own power is the only thing one can really control, and whomever has the most power is the most successful. Sure, he worries about tenure and his writing, but as long as he can push for his next PR, that's what will really set him apart from his annoying colleagues. Taking place over the course of one afternoon, we sit intensively within the mind of Harold as he ruminates, spirals, exercises, and ultimately starts connecting the dots about who he has become, who he can trust, and how he got here.
If you would have asked me how I was feeling about this book at the 50% mark, I would have said it was probably a 2 star, and that would be a GENEROUS rating. I figured this would be introspective, but I wasn't prepared for how stream of conscious this would be as we sit in the mind of a man who is clearly unwell. Kudos to the author for writing what I found to be a realistic portrayal of a mind that is on the brink of a psychotic breakdown, but on the other hand it just... wasn't interesting. The entire first half takes place probably over the course of 45 minutes as we listen to Harold ruminating, philosophizing, and spiraling. It was repetitive and slow and painful. It was clear that the author was trying to convey... something. But it wasn't coherent at all.
But I think the second half really redeemed it. Again, the whole second half probably takes place over the course of about two hours, and while we are still solidly in Harold's spiral, he's more grounded (on account of him being in the gym for most of this part), but it is where the story starts to solidify. The author's intent becomes more clear and what he's trying to satirize takes shape. While he seems to be satirizing both manosphere and "woke academia" in equal regard, the allegory pays off in the end. It made me reflect back on the first part to see what all I "missed" with regard to the author's intent while I was mostly bored.
Do I think the author intended for the first part to be so weak and the second to be so strong? No, I don't. And I don't think the second part ultimately "redeemed" the book, but it was much stronger than I expected it to be.
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November 21, 2025The pump was not for me.
November 16, 2025
Two things I really enjoy reading:
1. Campus novels stricken with departments politics powered by personal animosity.
2. Novels unfolding in long, spidery sentences that bring you uncomfortably close inside the rather despicable protagonists's head.
What happens when you fuse the two together and have Lucky Jim as told by The Underground Man? Well, it might look a little like Muscle Man. Not exactly a light or pleasant read, but also was pretty hilarious at parts and well worth reading. As others have noted, one of the few novels I know of that has something to say about the so-called "manosphere", but also one that I doubt those boys will end up reading.
1. Campus novels stricken with departments politics powered by personal animosity.
2. Novels unfolding in long, spidery sentences that bring you uncomfortably close inside the rather despicable protagonists's head.
What happens when you fuse the two together and have Lucky Jim as told by The Underground Man? Well, it might look a little like Muscle Man. Not exactly a light or pleasant read, but also was pretty hilarious at parts and well worth reading. As others have noted, one of the few novels I know of that has something to say about the so-called "manosphere", but also one that I doubt those boys will end up reading.
October 20, 2025
Fascinating novel, wonderfully Dostoevskian excerpts here and there.
October 7, 2025
glad i read notes from underground a few months ago! this was fantastic
October 27, 2025
Deals with a professor who’d rather be lifting than lecturing. Felt kinda aimless, theres some bizarrely hilarious stuff but most of the novel takes place inside his head, pseudo-philosophizing. We get concepts of glimmers of intriguing ideas like how lifters see lifting as a religion and the gym as their church or how the academic world can cause professors to isolate themselves inside their own head. Sadly there isn’t any plot to provide substance to those ideas nor entertain us, just lots of “thought-talking” as Harold imagines himself to be a podcast host in the studio of his own mind, which he subjects the viewer to be the listener of.
October 7, 2025
i thought i wouldn't like this book, this sort of writing not my favorite. but i was pleasantly surprised and found myself enjoying it and intrigued by harold and his day. i entered the goodreads giveaway for fun and came out with a decent book!
December 20, 2025
As someone who has received a postgraduate degree in English Literature, I related to this perhaps too deeply. Super intelligent, though at times a laborious read. Academic institution as haunted house, gym as funhouse, car as the only neutral space in the text.
Read
November 2, 2025i grabbed this on a whim and it actually turned out to be very apt personally. masculinity is a cage of your own making
November 6, 2025
I simply couldn't finish this...while the prose fascinated me, I couldn't get the "what the hell is going on" scream out of my head. This one wasn't for me.
November 24, 2025
Hmmmm...much to be made of the deadlift as the only of the classic lifts discussed in detail (technical specifics, "wedging in", etc.). But does he pull conventional? To leave that unstated...what does it all mean?
December 22, 2025
pretty good... kinda funny... very liberal arts
December 25, 2025
Drags at times but overall interesting.
November 4, 2025
Don't care didn't ask, hate thinking about this book and all its useless manosphere-adjacent content every time I'm in the gym
September 29, 2025
Very strong
November 23, 2025
A tenure-track lit professor feels oppressed by his faculty, so he oppresses his students. He thinks academia lacks practical application, so he applies himself at the gym. The story of one day in his life is told by Castro using a close-third-pov with overly formal narration that’s meant to make us dwell on the character’s cognitive process.
This technique, associated with the alt-lit movement, makes the story extremely dry and feels implausible. No one’s thinking is this regimented or deliberative. It also gives the impression of meta narrative because it is so focused on a particular viewpoint that never gets critiqued. That makes it hard for a reader to recognize the narrative voice and the narrative style means a lot of toxic, Reddit alt-right style thinking (“weight lifting makes someone both the victim and the victimizer”). The benefit I suppose of this approach is it realistically recreates the experience of going to a gym.
I’m not sure who this book is for, unless it’s for guys who are toxically online. I’m a tenure track guy prof who tries to lift weights and it isn’t for me. I wouldn’t want to work with Harold who doesn’t seem to recognize the great thing about academia is he can do whatever he reasonably wants and thinks is purposeful. In the end, he seems to get that, but he also can’t help continuing to deify his one fascist colleague which is a little far fetched and extremely troubling.
This technique, associated with the alt-lit movement, makes the story extremely dry and feels implausible. No one’s thinking is this regimented or deliberative. It also gives the impression of meta narrative because it is so focused on a particular viewpoint that never gets critiqued. That makes it hard for a reader to recognize the narrative voice and the narrative style means a lot of toxic, Reddit alt-right style thinking (“weight lifting makes someone both the victim and the victimizer”). The benefit I suppose of this approach is it realistically recreates the experience of going to a gym.
I’m not sure who this book is for, unless it’s for guys who are toxically online. I’m a tenure track guy prof who tries to lift weights and it isn’t for me. I wouldn’t want to work with Harold who doesn’t seem to recognize the great thing about academia is he can do whatever he reasonably wants and thinks is purposeful. In the end, he seems to get that, but he also can’t help continuing to deify his one fascist colleague which is a little far fetched and extremely troubling.
December 7, 2025
I picked this up on the strength of The Novelist, the other Castro novel I’ve read, thinking that I’d get some more of The Novelist’s popomo hijinx and goofballery wrapped around a serious message. But whereas that earlier novel had an over-the-top metafic jacket, Muscle Man felt serious all the way through. The book’s about an English professor, Harold, on the day of a faculty meeting at Shepherd College, which he’s dreading because he hates these sorts of things since they’re beneath him and because he hates his colleagues since they’re weak and because he just wants to go to the gym and work out. In the seemingly endless lead-up to the meeting, Harold is trying to get in touch with the one other faculty member who he actually likes, Casey. Casey, we’re told, is the most respected member of the faculty and is effortlessly brilliant and is a good teacher and a good guy and is the one who first brought Harold to the gym. After the agonizingly long wait, the agonizingly long meeting begins, which seems to be about nothing of any importance except to serve as a platform for his inferior colleagues to extol the virtues of their various weaknesses. The second part of the novel takes place at the gym, where Harold moves through his workout thinking about the stupid meeting and wondering where Casey is. This too moves very slowly, but then after the workout and the sauna and the shower Harold is called on his drive home and asked to come back to campus to discuss something. This, we and Harold suspect, relates to some of the bizarre behavior that Harold has exhibited in recent months which might even lead to him getting fired, but turns out to be about Casey, the focus of a series of unspecified complaints by members of the campus community. It’s here that the novel suddenly speeds up, and we glean that Casey may not have been such a great guy (although the “complaints” remain totally ambiguous) and that all of the Casey stuff we’ve been given has been from Harold’s slanted view. This is the most interesting stylistic thing that Castro is doing here—he’s written this novel in a nouveau free-indirect style that pretends at the third person but is really the first. But then the meat here, and the thing that this novel seems is really about, is the manner in which (white-, cis-, hetero-) masculinity must be negotiated in the twenty-first century, as in, something that is both Apollonian and perhaps even effete (English professor) and Dionysian (a bodybuilder). Or maybe what I’m calling “negotiated masculinity” is really just a Western (white-, cis-, hetero-) masculinity fighting against the urge to colonize and to ordinate people into classes of superiority/inferiority. Or maybe what I’m calling “negotiated masculinity” is really just an internal battle between knowing that the politics of gender affirmation and sexual affirmation and racial affirmation is desperately important and feeling annoyed by it. Castro circumscribes something that is hard to put a firm finger on, and he takes a swing here, and he’s the messenger we shouldn’t shoot. Nobody knows what it’s like behind blue eyes.
November 21, 2025
3,5* rounded up.
Thank you to NetGalley for letting me listen to this audiobook.
Men need healthy hobbies and therapy.
I listened to the audiobook for this one and I think that made the book better. This narrator (Vikas Adam) did such a good job to not only portray the main character, but also all other characters.
The mediocre man to highly paranoid gum bro is only one toxic person away. Harold is a despondent man stuck in a futureless academic job. He has no friends and fumbles any interaction he has. Especially with his biggest crush, I mean best friend Casey. Casey is the biggest inspiration for Harold because this colleague is so manly, doesn't take any shit and is just mega hyper cool. Meaning that almost no moment passes where Harold doesn't wonder what Casey would think and what it would be like to be him. In the meantime, Harold cannot stop plotting against anyone who comes near him and figuring out how to lift more and more weights.
This book is the perfect representation of what so many male losers think and behave like, both in their private life and on the internet. This is best represented by Harold wanting to start a lifting YouTube channel (optioning the names: English Lift and Lifetrature) instead of switching to a different school and trying to find help for his struggles.
While Harold is obviously a very sad character I had a lot of fun listening to his stupid rambles about any- and everything. This book feels like a well-balanced mix between American Psycho, Fight Club and the montage of Ken first entering Century City in the Barbie movie.
Please do not take this book/the main character too seriously and let yourself be entertained.
Some interesting quotes and terms:
"He was one with the pump."
"post-pump"
"anti-lifter propaganda in the media."
"men lifted for other men"
"He looked like he'd be fun to bully. He was probably sixteen."
And, of course, his failed attempt at rapping.
Thank you to NetGalley for letting me listen to this audiobook.
Men need healthy hobbies and therapy.
I listened to the audiobook for this one and I think that made the book better. This narrator (Vikas Adam) did such a good job to not only portray the main character, but also all other characters.
The mediocre man to highly paranoid gum bro is only one toxic person away. Harold is a despondent man stuck in a futureless academic job. He has no friends and fumbles any interaction he has. Especially with his biggest crush, I mean best friend Casey. Casey is the biggest inspiration for Harold because this colleague is so manly, doesn't take any shit and is just mega hyper cool. Meaning that almost no moment passes where Harold doesn't wonder what Casey would think and what it would be like to be him. In the meantime, Harold cannot stop plotting against anyone who comes near him and figuring out how to lift more and more weights.
This book is the perfect representation of what so many male losers think and behave like, both in their private life and on the internet. This is best represented by Harold wanting to start a lifting YouTube channel (optioning the names: English Lift and Lifetrature) instead of switching to a different school and trying to find help for his struggles.
While Harold is obviously a very sad character I had a lot of fun listening to his stupid rambles about any- and everything. This book feels like a well-balanced mix between American Psycho, Fight Club and the montage of Ken first entering Century City in the Barbie movie.
Please do not take this book/the main character too seriously and let yourself be entertained.
Some interesting quotes and terms:
"He was one with the pump."
"post-pump"
"anti-lifter propaganda in the media."
"men lifted for other men"
"He looked like he'd be fun to bully. He was probably sixteen."
And, of course, his failed attempt at rapping.
December 3, 2025
I did not much enjoy this book, though I think I recognize that it has literary value.
In this novel, we are stuck inside the head of Harold, an assistant professor of English and a devoted weight-lifter. We follow his thoughts during encounters with students and a faculty meeting; then his thoughts while he lifts weights at the gym.
Many of these thoughts are best described as toxic masculinity -- an obsession with hierarchies among people, diffuse anger at women, colleagues, and his students. (Very unpleasant to read!) Then his obsessive thoughts about weights, philosophies of lifting, power-lifters vs bodybuilders, great men and those who are assholes.
From reading other reviews, I understand that this novel is a new version of Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground, but I have not read this. As in some other novels by literary academics, I feel like much of the book is aimed at some audience of lit-crit people that does not include me.
In this novel, we are stuck inside the head of Harold, an assistant professor of English and a devoted weight-lifter. We follow his thoughts during encounters with students and a faculty meeting; then his thoughts while he lifts weights at the gym.
Many of these thoughts are best described as toxic masculinity -- an obsession with hierarchies among people, diffuse anger at women, colleagues, and his students. (Very unpleasant to read!) Then his obsessive thoughts about weights, philosophies of lifting, power-lifters vs bodybuilders, great men and those who are assholes.
From reading other reviews, I understand that this novel is a new version of Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground, but I have not read this. As in some other novels by literary academics, I feel like much of the book is aimed at some audience of lit-crit people that does not include me.
November 8, 2025
What did I just listen to? Other than over-the-top goodness, I can’t really describe this audiobook.
“Muscle Man” is a day in the life of literary professor and muscle man, Harold. We are in his mind for the whole adventure. And his thoughts are insanely hilarious, narcissistic, and just a jumbled-up mess. Think “American Psycho” without all the blood and guts, well, and I guess nudity.
Did I mention hilarious? I realize this may not be for everyone, but I love humor that points out the absurdity of things by making them normal and doing so with a straight face. There were many moments in the novel that I was laughing, but there was one scene in particular that had me in tears. Another thing about absurd humor that I love is when it fixates on something and goes well past the point it should on being fixated. There are several moments of this in “Muscle Man”.
Vikas Adam is the narrator and he was absolutely perfect. I highly recommend the audiobook.
I received this ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.
“Muscle Man” is a day in the life of literary professor and muscle man, Harold. We are in his mind for the whole adventure. And his thoughts are insanely hilarious, narcissistic, and just a jumbled-up mess. Think “American Psycho” without all the blood and guts, well, and I guess nudity.
Did I mention hilarious? I realize this may not be for everyone, but I love humor that points out the absurdity of things by making them normal and doing so with a straight face. There were many moments in the novel that I was laughing, but there was one scene in particular that had me in tears. Another thing about absurd humor that I love is when it fixates on something and goes well past the point it should on being fixated. There are several moments of this in “Muscle Man”.
Vikas Adam is the narrator and he was absolutely perfect. I highly recommend the audiobook.
I received this ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.
November 24, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley and Brilliance Publishing for providing this book as an audio eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.
This book is an interesting take on masculinity, body image, fear and academia that grasped my attention from start to finish. It is audacious, funny and intensely stressful. It does an impressive balancing act of tackling serious issues like racism, sexism, and misogyny with a humorous take on the world of academia and results in a story that feels raw and heavy-hitting. There are so many moments in this book that surprised me. The narration really made the book for me. Vikas Adam embodies every character so fully that you feel like you're intimately inside the mind of the protagonist, and every emotion feels raw and real. I laughed, I winced, I got breathless, I paced around, and hours after finishing the book, I cannot stop thinking about it.
This book is an interesting take on masculinity, body image, fear and academia that grasped my attention from start to finish. It is audacious, funny and intensely stressful. It does an impressive balancing act of tackling serious issues like racism, sexism, and misogyny with a humorous take on the world of academia and results in a story that feels raw and heavy-hitting. There are so many moments in this book that surprised me. The narration really made the book for me. Vikas Adam embodies every character so fully that you feel like you're intimately inside the mind of the protagonist, and every emotion feels raw and real. I laughed, I winced, I got breathless, I paced around, and hours after finishing the book, I cannot stop thinking about it.
November 15, 2025
A bro lost in a Trenbolone fever dream.
That’s the book in one line.
2.75 stars
You spend hours inside the skull of a man who thinks the world is conspiring against him while he spirals through hunger, paranoia, gym euphoria and self-inflicted humiliation. The lifting scenes are vivid, the academic resentment is sharp enough, and the meltdown is occasionally funny. But the endless inner monologue wears thin. It’s claustrophobic by design, and it never gives you anything beyond his fumes.
There are moments where Castro lands the psychology — the failed 505, the sauna embarrassment, the betrayal of Casey — but it’s all filtered through a narrator you can’t trust and struggle to care about.
Good concept, strong atmosphere, but too trapped in its own head to fully land.
Thanks NetGalley and Brilliance publishing for access to the audiobook.
That’s the book in one line.
2.75 stars
You spend hours inside the skull of a man who thinks the world is conspiring against him while he spirals through hunger, paranoia, gym euphoria and self-inflicted humiliation. The lifting scenes are vivid, the academic resentment is sharp enough, and the meltdown is occasionally funny. But the endless inner monologue wears thin. It’s claustrophobic by design, and it never gives you anything beyond his fumes.
There are moments where Castro lands the psychology — the failed 505, the sauna embarrassment, the betrayal of Casey — but it’s all filtered through a narrator you can’t trust and struggle to care about.
Good concept, strong atmosphere, but too trapped in its own head to fully land.
Thanks NetGalley and Brilliance publishing for access to the audiobook.
November 16, 2025
I love a literary satire as much as the next guy, and the premise of this book excited me: a paranoid and claustrophobic inner monologue from an insecure literature professor who’s obsessed with weightlifting. A sendup of masculinity and academia and men who think they’re better than everyone else - it reminded me a lot of The Great Man Theory by Teddy Wayne, a very similar satire of the same subjects that was one of my favorite books from a few years ago.
But the execution of this totally missed the mark for me. The main character was so insufferable and impossible to listen to, which I know is the point (!), but not done in a way that I felt was truly satirical or interesting or saying anything in particular. It just felt like another white man complaining about woke culture and objectifying women and thinking about gains. Not what I want to be reading in this day and age.
But the execution of this totally missed the mark for me. The main character was so insufferable and impossible to listen to, which I know is the point (!), but not done in a way that I felt was truly satirical or interesting or saying anything in particular. It just felt like another white man complaining about woke culture and objectifying women and thinking about gains. Not what I want to be reading in this day and age.
December 22, 2025
Like with The Novelist, this entire book also transpires over the course of half of one day. I appreciate Castro's dedication to detailing every thought passing through the main character's mind. The specificity of worries, anxieties, and plans that he details work to create a shared tension in the reader. I think I would've appreciated it more if I'd read it in one day as well. Dragging it out over multiple days made me feel stuck in this one situation, although I'm sure that was Castro's intent. I still had a lot of curiosities unanswered at the end. I think it takes skill as a writer to dedicate to such minute detailing of thought and to contain himself to encapsulating an entire tale in such a short period of time.
November 7, 2025
I purposely wanted to read this book because I wanted to see how a talented writer would approach the "Manosphere". This novel is exactly the pathway in for someone like me who cannot relate to the protagonist. The author is a poet, and you can tell because the prose just flows so beautifully. I really loved the immersive way you were inside the protagonist's mind during this long, very odd day. You feel his loneliness and lack of self awareness. The ending was a bit satisfyingly ambiguous for me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews