Customer Reviews

The Misadventures of Justin Hearnfeld

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Twenty-something English teacher Justin Hearnfeld is understandably troubled--he's not even sure if he's lost his virginity yet! Too much alcohol washed his memory of the one revelry-filled college night when the deed might have been done. Adding insult to injury, Justin's students and colleagues all get more action than he does, leaving poor Justin to channel his sexual frustration into ad-libbing musicals for a local improv troupe and aspiring to compose the great American novel.

Like hero Henry Mann in Dan Elish's equally wonderful Nive Wives, Justin Hearnfeld is a supremely likable and relatable modern character, embodying the hopes and insecurities of any over-intelligent, under-achieving single person who's still searching for his purpose, and partner, in life. Justin may spend much of his time deciphering great literature for his students, but he devotes equal passion to agonizing over failed courtships and concocting elaborate fantasies about perfect tens despite having the right, less conventionally beautiful girl right there under his nose. The novel's most hilarious scenes depict Justin's various bedroom encounters, leaving readers hungrily turning the page to discover what unexpected twist of fate will thwart Justin from scoring this time.

The Misadventures of Justin Hearnfeld is a moving, realistic, gorgeously-written coming-of-age story. You'll also be hard-pressed to read a paragraph without laughing aloud at least once--Justin's desires and observations are shockingly honest, and you can't help but admire his courage to own up to them. In the end, you feel deeply for Justin Hearnfeld, but you don't feel too sorry for him--all his misadventures will serve as great raw material for when he writes his own great American novel one day.

Justin Hearnfeld, the hero of the story, is a recent college graduate and desperate to lose his virginity even though there is a slight chance he may not be a virgin due to a drunken blackout. The book is very funny at the beginning and many young men can identify with Justin's thought processes and insecurities. The highlight to me was when he realized everybody in his family but him was currently having sex at that very moment. The outlandish circumstances that keep denying his sexual conquests start to become way too predictable after a while. What makes Justin's arc so appealing was not so much about his pursuit of losing his virginity but his slow but gradual maturing into a man that happens within the span of the year this novel takes place.