Peter Cameron

Eighteen-year-old James Sveck, sophistocated yet vulnerable, appreciates the world around him. He just doesn't know how to live in it.

A Novel

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

cedar winslow

sam kruczek

take the catcher in the rye but make the protagonist a likable narrator and you’ve got someday this pain will be useful to you. very good quick read! i liked listening to the main characters stream of consciousness and found lots of relatable nuggets #introvertlyfe

jillian tenner

so devastatingly relatable and the author somehow formulated and articulated (thanks Riley) all the thoughts and feelings that I didn’t even realize I had or never knew how to talk about and the ending is one I have to think on for a while because I’m not sure how I feel about it 

This book is kinda just a guy going about his life. not much really happens but this observations and thoughts are very interesting and thought provoking

Georgia Carr

I really enjoyed this. The plot's not complex and it can be slow in places, but James. He's just a great protagonist and this is a great coming-of-age novel.

Fiona Coffey

I really enjoyed this book! It took me a long time to start it, because the title isn't appealing and I didn't want to seem like I was reading a self help book. Also, my mom recommended the book to me because she thought I would relate to the main character and I was feeling defiant. 

Actually, I really did relate to the main character, James. He put into words what I feel sometimes, and don't know the words for. I felt like we would be friends, if he was real. And he did feel very real! I wish I could meet him, or talk to him, or give him a hug. 

I love how this book takes place over the course of a couple days. It's not a big adventure. It's not full of teen romance or anything like that, it could happen to anyone! And I love the sarcasm and funny little jokes, it made the whole thing seem so real. His therapist is annoying and I share his hate of people like that. 

I wish it hadn't ended so abruptly. It was like I was finally 100% into it and loving it and wanting more, (I stayed up until 12:17 AM to finish it) and then it ended so suddenly. I really did love it though! Thanks Mom, for sharing! 

(Now I'm going to put it on my bookshelf. So if you want it, you'd better come take it back before I get used to it being there). :)

Tiffany Robinson

I really enjoyed this book. I really liked all the characters. The only thing I didn't really care for was the ending. I felt like it ended to abruptly.

Ellie Younger

Kevin Bertolero

K. Qua

Corey White

Jennifer Dieter

Phillipa Russell

Riley

Emily Perkovich

Zoe Smolen

Jordan Robinson

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the story of James Sveck, a sophisticated, vulnerable young man with a deep appreciation for the world and no idea how to live in it. James is eighteen, the child of divorced parents living in Manhattan. Articulate, sensitive, and cynical, he rejects all of the assumptions that govern the adult world around him–including the expectation that he will go to college in the fall. He would prefer to move to an old house in a small town somewhere in the Midwest. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You takes place over a few broiling days in the summer of 2003 as James confides in his sympathetic grandmother, stymies his canny therapist, deplores his pretentious sister, and devises a fake online identity in order to pursue his crush on a much older coworker. Nothing turns out how he'd expected. "Possibly one of the all-time great New York books, not to mention an archly comic gem" (Peter Gadol, LA Weekly), Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the insightful, powerfully moving story of a young man questioning his times, his family, his world, and himself.

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You A Novel

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