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So, me and Paul Theroux, we have this thing going on. He writes, I read, and I love what I read. It's a love affair, really, albeit a very one-sided one, since Mr. Theroux is currently unaware of my continous devotion for his works (and will remain, so, thank you very much).

And yet, in every good love affair, there comes a point when the lovers disagree. Mr. Theroux and me have reached this point with his book "O-Zone".

"O-Zone" is science-fiction, which would certainly be the first thing I'd have objected to had it been written by anyone but Theroux. But love makes you blind, and so I was a bit surprised, but still completely trusting when I started reading it. And in the beginning, it was all good. I was even beginning to admire the way he built up the characters, the writing (which is excellent of course), the way he introduces us to his fictive future world where large parts of the world are unpopulated areas, and the rest is strictly divided between the rich owners and the rest of the, barely human, population.

And it could have gone on like this. Only, one day you go to bed with a man whose different opinions you find interesting, and the next morning you wake up next to a stranger, and you realize, this is not the way you wanted your love life to turn out. And I woke up and realized that this is not the book I wanted to read. In fact, I'm only reading it because it's written by Theroux. And since he doesn't know me, I'm not really doing him any favors by continuing to read it. So I kind of skipped through the last pages, decided that there really wasn't anything in it that was worth reading more precisely, and put it away.

I tried, but I think we'll agree to disagree on this one. Or maybe we don't even disagree? Maybe this book is one of that stupid things that everyone has done in their past, and you are kind of ashamed of them, but they are also a part of you. Like, say, having had the walls of your room covered with posters of Axl Rose when you were 14. Not that I one would ever amit to that in public.

Whatever it is, I didn't like O-Zone much. Too constructed, a subject that doesn't interest me, not drastic enough to be truly apocalyptic or dystopian. Plus, I miss the brutal openness and almost voyeuristic honesty that's present in Theroux's other works, that make them so special to me.

But a little disagreement like this certainly doesn't mean that our love affair is over!