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Fleishman Is In Trouble came as a real surprise to me. I don’t know what I expected, but it was better than I’d hoped. It was absorbing with a philosophical slant.

The book is told in three perspectives, firstly by Toby, secondly by his friend from University and lastly by his ex-wife, Rachel. In the present, Toby has his children to stay for a few days while his ex-wife goes on a trip, but she doesn’t return to pick them up. This is the catalyst for him looking back through the years and considering the decline of his marriage.

Toby has newly discovered the dating world with the help of some apps. He meets various women on these apps who are from his home of New York and they often send him racy texts which precipitate sexting, phone sex and sex-fueled meetings. There isn't much description of the sex, so don't be concerned it's graphic. He’s flabbergasted that such a world existed that he had no clue about and enters into it wholeheartedly. It proves difficult for him to meet up with these various women as he’s the sole caretaker of his children, seeing as his wife hasn’t taken them back, but he works around this. People commented that the novel was funny, but to be honest I didn’t find this.

As well as Toby, there are frequent appearances from 40-somethings who are, more often than not, in the grip of a mid-life crisis. I must say I found myself jarred and confused at some of the changes in the perspective and this took me out of the narrative. There were astute observations about the life of this portion of society on virtually every page. These observations also considered marriage and things like the morality of one’s life choices.

Essentially this was a character-driven novel. The plot, Rachel going missing, was secondary to the examination of the lives of those in amongst the pages. I didn’t feel overly sympathetic towards any one character, given that none of the issues considered affect me, however I really disliked Rachel after I’d read Toby’s assessment of her. Something happened towards the end of the book, though, that changed everything for me. I can’t explain this any further as this’d be a spoiler, but suffice as to say it came as a real surprise and upended what I’d read previously. That’s what I love about literature, it’s power to make me consider things from a totally new angle. This cemented Fleishman Is In Trouble as a definite 4 star read. The main thing that held it back from being a higher rated read was the distance I felt towards the issues considered.

The ending, while astute, was overly long and depressing. I was left feeling depleted with very little optimism. As I say, it was astute, just pretty depressing.

Overall this was an excellent read that I’d highly recommend to anyone who likes character-driven stories with a dash of mystery thrown in. It may be slightly more suitable to those of the age range depicted, though.