THIS MODERN LOVE: a novel

by Ray Hecht

American love isn’t what it used to be.

Roommates Jack and Ben are complete opposites when it comes to romance. For Jack, a mere waiter, it’s easy to use to the latest to app meet a new girl every weekend. But Ben, even though he’s a programmer, can’t seem to figure out how to maneuver online dating.

On the other side of town, sisters Andrea and Carla have their own issues. Andrea is a bit of a wreck, stumbling from one dramatic episode to the next. Carla is more concerned with blogging than dating, though she does get lonely at times. In an age of narcissism and alienation, it’s just so hard to meet someone.

Over the course of one day, these thoroughly modern men and women keep passing each other by. From yoga class to the club – all in a haze of drugs, sex, and selfies – opportunities for true love come and go, and no one notices because they were too busy staring at their phones.

Welcome to the 21st century.

198 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2016

About the author

Ray Hecht was raised in America, from the Midwest to the West Coast, on a starchy diet of movies and comics and science fiction paperbacks. Mostly writing about such states as California and Ohio, and such provinces as Guangdong. Lived in Shenzhen, China since 2008, that Special Economic Zone & Hong Kong-bordering chaotic city of the future, occasionally partaking in freelance journalism for various local publications. Ray now lives in Taiwan.

Reviews

[Majenta · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 3 1/2 or 3 3/4. Thanks for sending David Bowie's "Modern Love" through my head. That's always a good thing, even when the modern relationship landscape might not be.
Best wishes for your next project(s).

[Auntie Terror · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
I was kindly given a "e-copy" by the author - and finally managed to keep my tablet on battery long enough to finish. ^^'
It isn't the kind of novel I'd usually pick up, so this was something like new reading-territory. The reader follows a number of more or less loosely connected people in their 20s on their search for meaningful relationships, or at least something that keeps them warm and "un-alone" for a night.
On the one hand, this was interesting in the way of a documentary, which I liked. On the other hand, I fear I lost track of who was who among the female characters very quickly, not the males, and thus might have missed some point or other the author was trying to make. But this might also be due to me reading on with time lapses in between.

[Vishakha Tiwari · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book plays off several shades of the contemporary grunge with a persistent neo-noir gradation. It saturates the cliché and builds it up through every paragraph till it blows into a cumulonimbus of decay. It is a tale of 'missed connections' and opportunities. A dystopic dirge keeps throbbing in the background while the four protagonists dance to its tune in perfect psychedelia.

It is hard to go through the book from this frame of reference. We can see ourselves in the pages making love to cellphones and avatars and losing sight of the reality while sinking deep into the mire of a new strain of love, the new romance. No one cares anymore for 'the real thing'. Is there actually something real? Well, we do not have the time to spare on that kind of discovery. In an age of fast food and digital cash, finding true love seems rather dreary and time-consuming. We have let ourselves be annihilated with lust instead. Modern love is nothing more, but a raunchy escapade. It is more of a habit, a mechanical urge.

The story is very collected, even though it screams of failing control over life. It stings to see the 'amount of life' we lose to that purple haze, barely conscious, remotely living. Technology, which was supposed to ease our lives in the first place, has ushered another kind of problem for us. They have enslaved us. We are getting high on technology, apart from other things.

Cubercabs, Minderr, Arrowchat and others present good parodies. The irony is rampant throughout the text. Jack, Ben, Carla and Andrea are like any other youngsters trying hard to make sense of things and failing repeatedly. In a race to defeat time, it seems we have left life far behind, for it functions in its own pace. What makes it worse is we do not even realize we lost. We stand broad and tall as the winners on the very ground which has lost its gravity.

This is a great book! You will feel the loss, make you question your lifestyle and fill your mind with 'what if's'. It is an eye-opener as it gives a bird's eye view to a lot of our daily struggles. You won't fall in love with any of the characters, because you will be busy building up walls and trying to prove that you are not one of those 'losers'. But, you will know, in the back of your head, it's about you or someone close to you and it will embitter you. Yet, you would want to know what happens to them. You will reach the end and realize life's not a fairy tale. You will realize some things need to be changed and soon. And you will hate these people even more.

A perpetual hunt for fulfillment and self-validation spans some one eighty two pages. Ray has done a tremendous job at painting these everyday characters that stand out to convey something alarmingly imperative to us in a succinct manner. The best part is the realization that of all the things around, love is the last thing that needs to be or can be modernized.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, hasn’t Ray Hecht nailed the sad state of the direction that “romance” is taking? THIS MODERN LOVE hammers home the great disconnect of human to human contact and the growing inability to actually converse, risk face to face rejection and put the effort into a real, live “get – to – know – you” possible relationship. Welcome to the age of internet dating, because “there isn’t anywhere to meet good people.” Meet four lonely people looking for “love” in all the wrong places, doing all the wrong things and mistaking monkey sex for the real deal.

A blend of humor, both comical and dark, the raw insecurities we all own and the fear of not being cool and looking like we have it all together. Oh wait, we have our cell phones, our selfies and our online connections, so we must have it all together! No need to stick out necks out and actually meet someone, right? Follow these four lonely souls as they chase the elusive dream, someone who will adore them, drama, self-absorption and all.

Ray Hecht even creates real, fumbling, sweaty sex, not the kid that “melts panties,” but the real deal, and to be honest, it wasn’t quite so dreamy. BUT. IT. WAS. HUMAN…and not are real sharing of emotions, just a physical release for instant gratification. Yep, it is all summed up in the words: American love isn’t what it used to be – Welcome to the 21st century. My only disagreement with those lines? American, how about Universal?

A gritty read with a raw message. Not looking for a message? It’s entertaining, too!

I received this copy from Ray Hecht in exchange for my honest review.

Publication Date: October 16, 2016
Publisher: Ray Hecht
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Print Length: 196 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews & More: http://tometender.blogspot.com

[Treece · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3 stars

This Modern Love does a decent job in portraying Millennials and their approach to dating, work ethic and the much maligned “meaning of life”. The characters all evading, conning, screwing, driving, using, lying and texting their way through the pages are Jack, Andrea, Ben, and Carla. Jack is a server who spends most of his time picking up girls on his phone and working the dating odds with his own system to score. When he’s not playing video games and offering advice to his roommate, Ben. Ben is a techy nerd who is good at what he does but lousy at relationships. The original nice guy who can’t seem to keep a decent woman but does well freelancing. Andrea is caught up in whatever she feels like doing at the moment and has few inhibitions or morals. She is so self-involved and narcissistic that by far, she was the most interesting person in the book. Carla is Andrea’s younger sister who is, like Jack, trying to figure out what the heck she wants to do when she isn’t indulging in various recreational drugs.

This novel had a few stellar moments when the author wasn’t offering fascinating tidbits and backstories on everyone. One of the best lines was in relation to Jack who is trying to figure out if he knows one of the women he is serving at his table:

One face seems vaguely familiar…
Then again, a lot of women seem vaguely familiar after a six- hour shift and a throbbing case of blue balls.

Another fascinating aspect of this book is the author’s creativity in replacing the names of all the gadgets and services that our busy Millennials use.

Here are all of the ones I came across-

Apple iPhone- Grapehone
Craig’s List- Doug’s List
iTunes- Streamtunes
Kinder app- Minnderr
Match.com- Arrow
Netflix- Cablevein
Paypal- Daypay
Plenty of Fish- Seafishing
Uber- Cubercab
Yelp- Yipe
Youtube- MeToob

Groovy, huh?

I think the author was having a grand old time coming up with all these names. It was fun figuring it out and he did so a great job that the funny and often accurate descriptive changes were spot on. I can appreciate anyone clever enough to avoid licensing issues.


What I disliked most about this book was the ending. I understand the philosophical point but it still did not work at all for me. Perhaps the point was that I should have a truckload of questions at the end. If you prefer resolution after the denouement then this book is not for you at all.

At least it started out good for me and by the end, I parted ways with everyone mentioned.
Overall This Modern Love is a drive-by of people you may recognize and not all are necessarily Millennials. This book is worth reading because it’s an experience. Once experienced, it leaves you with an interesting combination of brain food and flatulence. You can’t lose with that. Fun is still fun, and new experiences can be nourishing.


This ARC was given to me for an honest review.

[Mabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a visually descriptive book that sees a number of twenty-somethings grappling with the notions of romance and love in a technologically-riddled modern era. From briefly hooking up for a night to chasing previous partners again and again, This Modern Love explores the lengths a guy or girl in today's world will go to in order to find a sense of fulfillment – physically, emotionally and spiritually.

For the characters in this book, the answer to finding this all-round euphoric utopia apparently lies in finding someone to spend time with. For the rather self-centered Jack who takes pride in his physique, this means getting physical with the opposite sex; one girl, one night. For the rather low esteemed Ben, this means a long-term relationship; failing that he turns to mobile dating apps, online hook-up advertisements and vegging out at home in a bid to find a moment – or that someone – that makes him tick.

Mobile phones and dating apps are the very mediums that fuel these encounters and nights of passion among the characters in the book. We see both guys and girls attempt to pick each other up using such modern technology, and many of these successful hook-ups happen over a mere matter of texts and literally a matter of minutes. It begs the question: how long are some of us willing to wait before engaging intimately with someone? The book also toys with the idea that these instantaneous, spontaneous interactions with someone are forms of distractions from our troubles. For Jack, hooking up just like that over a dating app seems to momentarily make him forget his troubled years gone by and hidden flaws within his character today.

The book explores hooking up and the chase for fulfillment in a variety of ways: boy and girl, girl and girl, over a meal, over a drink, over a drive, over recreational hobbies. Throughout the book, after each encounter with someone they fancy, the characters seem to question what's next. Carla finds fleeting satisfaction in impressing one of her yoga students, giving herself self-love and experimenting with drugs all after the other, all in a short space of time. Towards the end of the book, Ben decides to take charge of his life and attitude on a whim – by signing up to a gym in order to get fit, or perhaps simply to become more buff to impress.

As such, the book hints at the suggestion that there are endless ways to keep ourselves occupied and find some decent company to hang around, but perhaps some of us feel lost in this aspect because don't know what we are looking for – because deep down we don't know the values that we stand for and find fault in presenting ourselves out there. Maybe the incessant looking down at our screens is to blame, or perhaps more simply our routine lives in the first place is to blame.

Notably, there are a number of sexual episodes in this book. Descriptive intimate action is fluidly peppered with intimate conversation between the characters. However, at certain parts of these narratives, personally I felt some of these scenes lacked emotion – that is, it was hard to tell if the characters were turned off or turned on in these moments, or felt ambivalent in the moment.

Overall, this was an engaging and refreshing read, a very honest look at how today's generation perceive getting close to each other – or delusionally not – with the aid of technology.

[Ming Wei · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young adult novel, about the quest to find fulfillment in romance and love, concentrating upon characters with emotions and feelings in their 20s in the modern world, with plenty of miss connections and opportunities. Embedded into the story is the growing fear towards the risk of face to face rejection. This book mirrors the reality of the world that we now live in, were people do not communicate in the real world, instead they rather use Internet/phone dating. These days on the streets it is hard to crack a smile with anybody, are people ignorant in real life or are they just more comfortable using technology? This story tells how people are coming alive and demonstrate more confident in the internet world. I would class this book, as real life in many aspects, a good story, well written, the authors story flows at a pace that keeps you interested throughout the book. Cannot find any fault in the book, no negatives, well worth a read, if you are into real life topics. People in their 40s, 50s, 60s+ might find this book interesting, to see the different social conduct between their lifetimes when they would have been hunting for live in their 20s, compared with the youths of today and there techniques in the hunt for love. Enjoyable and Interesting book.

[S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

★★★★: I rated Ray Hecht's South China memoir 3 stars and then the author friended me here on Goodreads. So you might say that I'm feeling kindly disposed towards this artist, or maybe Hecht has just improved his writing over the course of a year. one thing remains constant: the focus on sexuality and a modern attitude towards drugs. in fiction form, we have the opportunity to see these topics through four characters rather than just the one of a memoir.

Hecht can write. but how much you like this work depends on how much you like his themes. take a look at a sample of his work before you dive in, so if you like the sample, you should like the book. and congratulations to the author on getting published by Blacksmith Books.

[Trina Burgermeister · Rating 4 out of 5]

In This Modern Love, Ray Hect performs a postmortem on modern day love. While there is so much aching truth blasted onto every page, it was at time hard not to look away. I'm happy to be a happily married - some way, far away from the 20-something scene!

The writing is clean, the scenes vivid and at times, painful to endure. I am grateful for the peek inside the painfully modern scene of love, finding another to share even an evening with, and at the same time still hanging onto hope for the 'missed' opportunity to find something of meaning.

This book was raw, brave, and revealed a current culture deserving of a light full of exposure.

[Will Albers · Rating 2 out of 5]

Shallow people leading shallow lives and having shallow sex. Makes me glad i'm from an older generation. Didn't like the substitution of brand names. Grapephone just sounds stupid.

[Travis Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s like real life, but better – Tinder slogan.

Apps like Tinder are a natural consequence of a world of pickup artists and pseudo-harems, where 10% of the men fuck 90% of the women and everyone else is left paying hucksters thousands of dollars to learn how to play a game they were never fit to play in the first place.

Dating apps play a big role in Ray Hecht’s new book This Modern Love. Everyone is connected but everyone is lonely and we follow four of these lonely lives in Los Angeles as they seek attachment.

Ben Weiss stands at the crux of this book. Ben is an introverted coder whose relationship coldly ends because his girlfriend discovered his profile on dating websites while maintaining such profiles herself. Ben comes off as particularly emasculated, lost in a world of text seduction. “Cuck” might be the going term, though I’d never advise you to use it.

The others fare no better, even Jack who understands how the game is played. As they seek meaning, Ben pays for a sensual massage, Jack goes through women, Andrea sleeps with a middle-aged man and Carla writes fanfiction and does drugs, and no one comes away satisfied. There is no app or social media website that fills the void in their lives and love, if it exists in this world, cannot be distilled into a few kb of data and remains elusive to these people.

Although I initially thought I couldn’t relate to the people in This Modern Love, I think I understand them. In college I tried my hand at dating, with terrible results, and while I can’t empathize with Jack, I do pity Ben. Like many young men, lost in an increasingly disconnected world and a contest of counterintuitive rules which no one ever wins.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Synopsis Of Novel:

This novel starts out with Jack, a young man looking for love online. He chats with a variety of women, finally settling on one to meet. While preparing for his date, Jack imparts his knowledge of online dating to his roommate Ben, whom seems to be lacking in the love department.

We then meet Andrea, who is also surfing the internet looking for love. She speaks with friends Cera and Lisa about a variety of men, finally finding one (a married man that is) at a bar later that evening.

Bouncing back to Ben, we learn of his ambitions to develop an app which would match those that had experienced a missed connection. We also learn of his intent to meet the right one after his breakup with Candace earlier in the day.

Carla, Andrea’s sister, is now the focus of the next part. She talks of her failed relationship with Andrea, and the lack of confidence in her yoga-teaching abilities (as was displayed when upstaged by Kai during her teaching moment). She then resorts to online fan-fiction, which results in Carla performing sexual techniques upon herself in order to avoid her family downstairs.

Our attention is then turned back to Jack, whom has a run-in with a previous one-nighter, while on a date with another woman. Things turn astray for a bit however, Jack then delves into a sexual fantasy with his current date, only to be disappointed once the evening comes to a close. It was revealed that Jack never sees the woman again, while she goes on to meet a few other men from Minnderrr (an online-dating service).

Andrea is next to be discussed as she fulfils certain sexually-based desires in front of a live-streaming audience with her friend, Cera. Delving into a world as explicit as this is one that Andrea finds thrilling, especially when she finds out how much money was made in such a short amount of time.

Ben fills the next scene as he discusses his sexual encounter with Kai, whom happened to be Carla’s yoga rival in an earlier section of the book. Ben displays feelings of loneliness and despair as he opens up to Kai during their session. Kai seems to be unfazed, which leads Ben to question his abilities in love. We then see Ben and Janelle (a woman waiting for Jack at his apartment) conversing, which leads one to wonder if these two are headed towards destiny.

Carla comes back into the spotlight as she meets up with Sharon, an individual from her yoga class. Sharon tends to favour one-night stands, while Carla feels perplexed, looking for a way out of her rambunctious lifestyle of drug-taking and unpredictable run-ins. Carla’s smile to a quiet individual in the corner of the nightclub shows her willingness to lead a ‘normal’ life.

Jack reminisces about a past love named Gillian, while kicking himself for dating girls that live too far. He then discovers an email from Janelle, asking if they could become a couple. Jack replies rudely that it is not in her best interest, then ends his relations with her for good.

Andrea then comes into the picture once again, in which she discusses her feelings of emptiness as she wallows in self-pity after spending the night with Cera. Afterwards, we see Ben signing up for a gym membership, making a promise to himself to be a different man. Once he leaves however, he ends up noticing the woman of his dreams on the street, only to have his hopes dashed by an oncoming car and a buzzing phone.

Carla is the last individual to be discussed. She too seems lost, wandering around the streets, looking for meaning in her life. She then decides she wants to explore more, looking for that adventure her life she currently lacks. The novel ends with Carla seeing Ben on the street, as they cross paths, leaving the reader to wonder if impending death was apparent.

Response To Novel:

I truly enjoyed this novel, finding it very well-written, as well as extremely intriguing when each of the characters were introduced and discussed. In a way, I did feel empathy for the characters as they tended to be confused with the difference between reality and fantasy. I found Ray’s description of each character’s feelings towards their lives to be vivid, allowing me to actually feel as though I were seeing the world through their eyes. I also loved how each of the characters seemed to be intertwined with one another in one way or another. A definite eye-opener on how real the virtual world can be, slowly taking over our lives without our noticing.

[Mark Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although less ambitious in scope than his novel South China Morning Blues, Ray Hecht’s This Modern Love is in some ways a more focused work. In four narrative strands which occasionally intertwine, four main characters search for romance and/or sex in the weirdly familiar world of Minnderrr, Arrowchat, and Dougspost. Their experiences make us laugh and cringe because, for better or worse, we see reflections of ourselves in them. The book aptly chronicles both the joy and the emptiness—but mostly the latter—that result “when hearts and genitals collide.”

Unlike South China Morning Blues with its Asian setting, This Modern Love is a distinctly American story. The novel’s West Coast vibe is authentic, and Hecht traces his characters’ multi-generational family histories back to the time when their forebears immigrated to the States. This unique aspect of the book not only highlights the diversity of American life, but it also adds depth to characters which might otherwise seem trivial and superficial.

The paperback edition of the text contains a number of typos which can be distracting, but this is counterbalanced by some fine descriptive language. In one particularly memorable simile, a butt cheek is likened to “a pillow full of warm water balloons.” Passages such as this make This Modern Love a brisk and entertaining read which anyone who has experienced the indignities of online dating can relate to.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Modern Love weaves together the stories of four main characters and a cast of role players, insecure and adventurous in their sexuality and their dependence on modern technology. Each character gradually becomes more relatable as their pasts and their motivations in relationships are uncovered; and any twenty-to-thirty year-old reader will readily identify with both the likable and more annoying traits of characters from the "too eager to settle down" type wanting to see what their future holds to the "playboy womanizer" type scared of commitment and loss. Hecht and his characters explore sexual themes--paying for sex, being paid for sex, one-night stands, soulmates--with more emphasis on the question of practicality than morality. Meanwhile the characters seem to take for granted how frequently they use and abuse technology in pursuing the relationships they are looking for, from dating apps and social media to camming and ride-sharing. The emphasis on modern technology may be blunt but effectively leaves the reader pondering the same questions as some of the characters: has our reliance on technology hampered our ability to connect organically with friends and strangers; does a good tool used as a crutch make it more difficult for us to relate to one other for more than a brief fling?

[Isham Cook · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hecht has potential as a writer if he ever buckles down and does the actual labor involved.

[Calvin Tsang · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book read like an identity crisis. It was either trying to be the script of a bad woody allen movie or an amateur attempt at softcore porn, I had trouble telling which one it wanted to be more. In either scenario, it disappointingly underperformed.