White People on Vacation

by Alex Miller

White People on Vacation is a story about the struggle to live a meaningful life in the era of late-stage capitalism. More specifically, it is about a group of college students (white) who take a vacation (cursed) to Hawaii, which is paid for by their parents (loaded). Everybody has a terrible time in this portrait of clueless haoles attempting to leverage their generational wealth and skin color to attain the good life. White People on Vacation is a beach read for socialists, a swan song for human aspiration in the age of climate apocalypse.

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2022

Reviews

[Joey Hedger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good luck trying to put this book down after picking it up. I only meant to read the first few pages, then decided to "pause" everything else I'm reading until I finished. It's a terrific novel about terrible people and beautiful places and dread and environmental violence and sea turtles and wealth and snorkeling and depression and classism and infidelity. It's also a really funny book and really moving. Though it feels quick paced, White People on Vacation lingers in a way that's really interesting. We don't leave Murfreesboro, TN, immediately. We linger on the pre-trip moments and relationships. Then we remain in Hawaii, sort of refusing to leave. The book works really well, and I'm excited to check out Alex's other stuff.

[Samantha Kolber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nate the nihilist is depressed and thinks everything will be better in Hawaii, a vacation he scored by freeloading off his rich white girlfriend (Daddy’s credit card pays for it all). The whole book is a hilarious rambling narrative of his existential trip to Hawaii, a place where white tourists, himself included, mar the landscape and culture with their garbage and arrogance. I loved this sardonic tale of capitalism and climate change, class war and race, and a young twenty-one-year-old just trying to figure out who he his, and which girl to love. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Nate’s voice rings true and you might love him or hate him or both. I’d say this book is for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh’s MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION. It’s that kind of funny bleak.

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fuck me. Sometimes a book is so good that you can't even put into words how good it is. All you know is that a whirlwind of emotional responses hit the pit of your stomach and that's how you know you read something remarkable, which White People on Vacation is. Remarkable.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read White People on Vacation in two days, and it only took me that long because I started it late one afternoon. It is a terribly difficult trick to immerse the reader into the lives of spoiled college kids who cringe-fest their way around Hawaii and make you care about them, but Miller does. The protagonist is clearly at least trying to figure his shit out, and you end up rooting for him, even if it takes him an excrutiatingly long time to recognize some of the people around him, well, shouldn't be. The novel is a ton of fun, but it's also full of real insight about colonial tourism and socioeconomics and class standing. It's an absolute blast, and I recommend it without hesitation.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious. 4 College Kids take a winter vacation to Hawaii. Nate and Natalie have been dating since junior high and are looking to move to DC to intern at the IRS - sounds exciting. Nate realizes the rest of his life might suck. On vacation with two friends Avril and Roger - what could go wrong?

[Alex Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five shining stars because I wrote this beautiful mess of a novel 🤩

[Christian Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic and enthralling novel that I couldn’t put down. Easily the best I’ve read all year!

[MCWow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb, hilarious depiction of privileged, shallow jackasses.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

The writing is amazing. Clever and hilarious. It had me sharing passages with my friends, often. I laughed out loud multiple times and wondered if I was allowed to be laughing at the same time. The characters are so realistic. I can almost guarantee we all know people exactly like these four. Right after finishing, it felt like they were still just invisibly sitting next to me.

This book is amazing, and feels casual, but scary-deep at the same time, somehow.

[Bre · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - This is like watching a reality TV show and getting the first-person tell all about how terrible he and his friends are. Sort of fascinating, but also icky how terrible the characters were. Epically short chapters which I loved. Author has a poetic timing. Reads like a metronome.

[Mike Nagel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant.

[Spencer Pennington · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want one book to read to understand a generation… this is it. It’s got everything.

[Teresa Ardrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I, a White Person, took this book on vacation. Mostly for the lolz, because I wanted to see people's faces in the airport when I pulled it out and started reading. And the looks were worth it. But, you know what? The book was also well worth it. What an excellent book full of terrible people doing terrible things. And it isn't even horror (N.B. I read alot of horror). I will admit that reading the part that includes the flight, while being on an airplane made me viscerally aware that I was on an airplane. Ick. (Normally, I do my best to just forget the fact that I am trapped in a tube with alot of other people and their bad breath and their farts and their communicable diseases). Domestic flights (in the USA), especially from a 2nd Tier airport to just about anywhere, are just long and unbearable, very few direct flight options, so alot of terminal time and alot of plane time. And White People on Vacation just really nails that feeling.
But, hey, don't read White People on Vacation for the very real experience of traveling, but for the wry wit and satire on every page. I disliked all of the characters, yet I identified with some and that made me uncomfortable, but it also made me want to do better. To BE better. And satire done well is meant to make you see the reflection of yourself, even if it is distorted through a fun house mirror.

[Melissa Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Been meaning to read this one for a while and finally started it this week. This is a quick read and the characters are all relatable, if flawed. Miller captures what its like to be young and idealistic, and so unsure about the future.

[Jax Franz · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’ve ever drove past homeless people only to walk into a gleaming hotel lobby and thing “hmm this feels soulless” this book is for you. Four of the worst white people you’ve ever known go to Hawaii and just the vibes are bad. The vibes are so bad. But the main character’s perspective as he processes and tries to deal with the vibes being bad is really interesting. The staccato sentences and slow dread is addictive. A fast, good read.

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gift from my dear friend Margot Stillings. This book spoke in a voice I never thought I’d see or “hear” in print. The main character could’ve been me, could’ve been how I vacation, is how I narrate my world.

[Alysa Montagne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hated this book because of the parts of me that related to some of it. If you can read this through a lens of humor, you might be able to get through it to reflect on why its so disturbing, beyond the very obvious shittiness of the characters.

[Ted Eliason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better Kmart fiction than Don DeLillo’s ‘White Noise’. The book I’d recommend to a foreigner seeking to understand the often vapid interior lives of contemporary white 20-somethings partying abroad, bracing for boring futures of financial demands and credit card payments.

[Julian Garcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I'm being generous, I can admire that the book reflects certain aspects of the artistry of French New Wave movies: contradictory internal emotions, love triangles, and academically intelligent/self-aware young protagonists in exotic places talking about their most intimate thoughts. However, it reflects some of the misguided notions I think artists have when it comes to analysis of art, which is thinking primarily about content over form, and not of both as dynamic indicators of an artist's sensibilities. Anyone who invokes the French New Wave has to understand it was about class traitors, that cultural warfare was waged in traditional production methods and traditional aesthetics just as much as it was waged on the mainstream of society. That's my main problem with the book: all the window dressing, but none of the spirit of the New Wave -- or, at least, if the book does have a spirit, it is a paean to stagnation.

I think it's too easy to be annoyed with this sort of character -- rather, I'm annoyed with the way the author portrayed him.

There are a lot of thoughts but none that speak to an artist's sense of perception; they feel more like straight lines written in the character's head and then put to paper. They are purely functional; they don't run away, they don't provide a deeper insight into the how's and why's of the characters' inner lives beyond justification for their actions. They lack dynamism and freedom; even in Nate's most dour moments, memories and thoughts are only placed in the narrative as it relates to what the character is immediately doing -- the episode with Natalie and the cat was particularly irksome and coercive. The appearance of interiority with little to show for it. And I don't want to hear that empty aesthetics reflects inherent emptiness in character's lives: Antonioni, Hemingway, Caspar David Friedrich would like to have a word.

I'm sympathetic to the notion that despite nothing really happening to these characters, they have a kind of 21st century digital survivor's guilt. They're intimately aware of how good they have it in life, and it inflicts a quasi-traumatic effect on them, where they're divorced from feeling their feelings in an immediate sense. I get that Miller -- despite his patience for people who aren't inherently bad but fail to do much good either - is writing an indictment of sorts. But the observations on the shallowness and spinelessness of this social class feel shallow and spineless themselves. He affirms and assuages the views of a typically liberal audience with the sorts of rants he writes into the mind of Nate and Avril, but they never come to life or take on a life of their own -- the way the best first-person art is capable of communicating.

P.S.: Also hate the way that male authors write about disaffected, college-aged, average, slim white guys having sex -- female pursuit is somehow endless and the characters cling and forgive without any sense of ramification. It's such a poseur bit, giving "male feminist" vibes, simply because it never communicates the prismatic sense of the messiness, exuberance, or utter destruction of sex. I think of Philip Roth, The Story of O., Georges Bataille, Anne Sexton, and yes, of course Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer.

[Brian O'Dea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious satire with an interesting style. Most chapters are only a few pages, sentences are fairly by the books for the most, but the MC goes on apocalyptic (and other) tangents that more pack more and empathy and insight than you would expect. Somehow the pretty bland lead becomes endearing, or at the very least, relatable and serves as a perfect counterbalance to his more openly terrible companions..

Incredibly easy to pick up and engrossing once you do. Favorite fiction read of 2023, just a great example of bleak of humor that retains some heart. Finished it in three days and will likely read it again while on vacation.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything I was promised on the back and more, I am glad I impulsively bought it when Malarkey announced a sale on Twitter. It's a fast read, it's bleak, it's sardonic, it's sexy, it's cutting, it ends in aporia. Idk why anyone wouldn't like this unless they sucked as a person.

I relate a lot to the narrator. Or a past version of me did. That's a bad thing. But it felt like reading a story about how my life could've been.

[Nina Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each chapter brings you into the nihilist viewpoint of the protagonist, Nate, and the pre and during vacation excitement of a group of friends you will love to hate. What they get from this trip is not what you would expect but precisely what they need. White People on Vacation is a gloriously breezy beach read that is perfect for a cold winter night and moves with a pace that demands that you don't put it down. So good!

[Tyler Strandberg]

I can’t do this one I’m so sorry I am NOT vibing with the style at all and I just don’t care about the main character thinking about death or the end of the world or whatever the fuck all the time and constantly talking about the weirdest fucking things like he has absolutely zero social awareness I can NOT do this

[Flynn Gilmore]

why do men like writing about boobs so much