Relationships fail because communism doesn’t work. Or, relationships fail when the individual is subsumed under the collective. The solution is to focus on one’s self: reading, semi-therapeutic drug-taking, smiling at security cameras, and bed rotting. These are some of the contradictory themes in Honor Levy’s My First Book, a collection of semi-autobiographical short stories by the leading existential socialite of the internet generation.

Honor Levy is a product of the critical theory classroom populated by the privileged elite. Those who can afford to dismiss Marxism because they discussed it together for a few months in their late teens and decided to move on. And those who cherrypick capitalist critique to dismiss social movements as banal identity politics, so that boys can be boys and wealthy family members can pick up the pieces of their destruction. The problem is that Levy knows this and hasn’t found a way out.

This master of contemporary linguistics and post-post-etc-modern irony weaves a tapestry of conflicting meanings so rich as to induce a sickening feeling that somewhere within this mess are the insights of a literary genius and prodigious cultural critic. But it’s wrapped in now-dated memes, right-wing appropriations of revolutionary politics, and an inability to commit to any meaningful values. If this is the voice of a generation, it had better grow up soon and stop lying to its therapists.