Review of Manic Pixie E-girl: Oh My God

I first found out about this book from TikTok (manic Pixie E-Girl by Nate Lemcke). I had seen the drama and wanted to come to a conclusion for myself. I did not trust what people were saying from only reading the sample, and I thought I would hear Nate Lemcke out on his commentary on "the damaging world of hypersexualized online environments."

Oh my god, I shouldn't have. The way he marketed this was very disingenuous.

In the first half of the book, I remained optimistic. Most of the gross stuff could be justified. His main character is aware of and actively working on not having sex or relationships and watching porn. The explicit sexual fantasy of a young girl who is described in a very childlike way (she has a small body, she says "pretty please" and "daddy," she stomps her foot and pouts, etc.) is jarring, but if this is supposed to be a commentary on how hypersexual online spaces affects us, then I guess it makes sense.

I do think the articulation of the issues the MC is dealing with is poignant. He uses relationships, women, and sex to cope with things in an unhealthy manner. I think a lot of people can relate to this. He also says that he craves female validation and approval. After growing up with a single mom and female teachers, he's shaped a lot of his self-worth around female approval. I think a lot of women can really relate to this, too, and the urge to receive male validation.

This made me hopeful. "Perhaps this book will explore how to deconstruct these damaging thoughts!" Unfortunately, no. As the story progresses, we find out that the real moral is that we as a society should not shame people for their “natural” sexual desires. There is no deconstructing but a complete acceptance of a hedonistic, anti-government, do-what-you-want society.

Oh, are you confused about the anti-government comment? Hold on… we'll get there.

First, I must address how Nate treats women within this book. He claims that he is not misogynistic and is actually a champion of women's rights.

The women in this book do not feel real. Our manic pixie e-girl is supposed to feel that way (i think?), but I also thought part of the story was to humanize her… he doesn't. Nope. Their relationship ends with him finally getting to sleep with her (to save the world, of course). She runs a sex cult through chaturbate and talks about conspiracy theories. All she cares about is making "whores" out of fellow young women.

The ex-girlfriend is demonized for not wanting to have a bum ex-boyfriend fraternizing with young cam girls. The therapist is the only woman who makes a sexual boundary (she also gives shit advice in their first session). The girl he "flirts" with at the grocery store would have more realistically asked for an employee escort to her car rather than give him his number. A woman tells him that girls actually DO want to be sent unsolicited dirty texts. In fact, the dirtier, the better!

I can not believe this man has ever had a meaningful relationship with a woman, ever. In fact, the whole thing is very lonely. There are no positive female relationships (I guess our cam girl is supposed to be one – the girl who lets him divulge all his sexual depravities). There are also no positive male relationships or even characters. All fathers suck. There are no male friends. Is this the commentary? It's isolating? I think that is too intelligent for Lemcke to point out. And if he did, he did nothing to solve it but says, "fuck it, who cares?"

I really don't want to go into the government conspiracy. It's batshit. Basically, the government produces the Mandella Effects with time jumps. Having sex with Abbie fixes what went wrong during 9/11. Crypto and TikTok will protect us from the government. Blah blah blah.

The big twist? His dad was the reason this time jump during 9/11 went askew. His dad caught him recreating a pornographic image with the girl next door (they were about 11 years old). This caused his dad to be stressed during the manifestation time jump. It is important to note that it was not his idea to recreate the porn. No, the little girl lured him to his first act of sexual deviancy. It was a running theme that women were always the sirens. Men WANT to be good. They just can't with all these succubi.

I did not go over the third subplot. It basically mirrors the main one but is set in a fantasy world. The MC in that plot does not have the sexual depravities of our modern-day MC, but he still gets to fuck the "promiscuous young coquette" on a stage at the end. There are times when it introduced some themes I thought could redeem this book, but it appears they were only accidental as they were quickly left behind.

Manic Pixie E-Girl by Nate Lemcke is a super weird rambling of conspiracies and hedonistic and sexual fantasies. It was really manipulative for him to say that it deals with women's issues at all when women are never given any inner dialogue or perspective or even a personality. Even grosser, he brought publicity to his book by "reading a book from a female author every day" on TikTok. The only "finding the humanity of women" moment in this book is a STRETCH. In the last two pages, before he has sex with his dream girl for thousands to see, he says it was good they were friends first (Were they really? They just used each other).

The pacing is pretty good. The writing is not good. The plot and the content are batshit insane. 2/5 stars for being somewhat entertaining.