It was a challenge to have Todd tell the parts of the story that didn’t involve him. You don’t want to get him in the way, as you said, but you have to interpose every once in a while, to remind the reader. A delicate dance. But I think the second half is better, too…how many books start off strong and lose stream?

I’ll check out Sabotage Cafe. Thx for the rec.

Have you ever read Joshua Furst’s The Sabotage Cafe? That’s another novel that takes a chance on an unusual POV. That one worked for me, but I had a few friends who couldn’t get past it.

I feel like I win a bonus for pegging Todd as a creep. I think it’s my acute sense of feminism that couldn’t wholly trust a character like Todd and the way he describe Taylor as nothing more than a sex object.

You are an astute reader, as your pointing out the overuse of “foyer” shows (was hoping no one but me would be annoyed by the copyediting slip-up in that particular passage).

The irony is, you weren’t disarmed by Todd’s charm (as many readers are) and immediately pegged him as a creep (which he certainly is). In other words, your contempt for him in the first part of the book was sort of intentional.

As for POV, I hear what you’re saying, but if you lose Todd, it becomes a third person narrative, and the central conceit is too outlandish to stand that way. The narrator of this kind of story has to be at least somewhat unreliable (and while it’s not overt, the evidence is there that Todd is full of crap) or it won’t work.

Anyway, sorry that the first half made you nuts — God I hate when books do that, especially books that are supposed to be fun — but I’m glad you liked the second part a little better.

Thanks for posting this.