Author Spotlight: Tony Tulathimutte, ‘Rejection’

Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection might be one of the most disgusting books I’ve read, but it’s also one of the funniest. His skewering portrayal of losers rejected by society or romantic partners includes Kant, a repressed gay man whose fetishes are taken to their extreme, Alison, whose affirmation-forward group chat turns on her at a moment’s notice, Craig, a woke-maxing feminist whose ‘READ MORE WOMEN’ tote bags and Twitter activism hinder his sex life, and Tulathimutte himself. Nearly every page is filled with an internet reference or cut that, while obviously poking fun at people like a tech-savvy biohacker who has plans to procreate exponentially, suggest a reverence or empathy for the down-trodden, the desperate, and the embarrassing. Tulathimutte speaks to the loser in all of us, and Rejection is a scarily accurate and wickedly funny depiction of the ridiculous hurdles we have to get by in order to live.