Content warning: This review has tons of spoilers, and mentions rape and underage relationships.

This is going to be a pretty unstructured and ranty sort of review, sorry about that, but I just wanted to blab my thoughts on this book.
First, I thought the writing style was really the only great thing about this book. Egan has a very sharp yet descriptive way of writing and I truly enjoyed that. The only other thing I liked about this book was the snappy, snarky bits of dialogue, mostly from Charlotte Swenson. (The 2 stars I'm giving to this book are purely for the writing) But that was later ruined for me because Charlotte is a god-awful human and I went from really liking her to basically despising her. And it's not because of her "lying" personality that she brags about; it's because she's written as getting a happy ending after doing all kinds of awful things, including but not limited to raping Detective Holladay. That was seriously a f-ed up scene and I'm pissed that Charlotte got to have her happy ending after all that. I know there are people who will argue that her ending wasn't happy because she had to "sell" her identity, but listen: she sold her name willingly and eagerly, gots a TON of money from it, and got to start her life over, which is something she really wanted. She got to escape all the celebrity of her life, and for Charlotte, that was a happy ending.
Additionally, the awful relationship between the other young Charlotte and Michael West is never condemned or taken care of. I understand that Charlotte was the one who pursued the relationship and wanted to have sex, but that still doesn't excuse the fact that West never has to face the consequences of his actions. He literally gets to skip off to LA and go make movies or whatever, and there are no repercussions for him.
Okay and lastly, wtf was up with Moose? At first, I kind of felt for him, but as his narrative went on it just seemed to spiral out of control and made less and less sense. I read "Look at Me" in a college class of mine and lots of people were going on about how "deep" and "thought-provoking" Moose was, but I'm like ???? No ??? He's a pretentious dipwad who thinks he's smarter than everyone else? I'm also super over his whole "oooohh, I don't use technology so ClEArLY I'm Smarter and more Wise than all you dummies". lol give me a break.
The only character I ended up caring even a little about what Ellen, and she didn't even get a proper ending to her narrative! -_-
okay, that's the end of my rambling review. I originally just passively gave this book 3-stars but thought about it again and realized how annoying and problematic it was. Would not recommend this book. ( )

As with A Visit from the Goon Squad, I find myself wanting to re-read Look at Me in order to piece together the interlocking pieces of the narrative. It's very interesting to compare the two books in terms of how expansive Look at Me is in comparison to the very concise, almost lapidary, Visit from the Goon Squad.

I wonder if Egan had ambitions to write a Great American Novel with this one. ( )

I found it difficult to read, but fascinating surreal story of two Charlottes??!! ( )

Seems to be satirizing the culture of the modeling world, but I found the plot twists over-the-top, particularly the “recreation” for film of the accident, ( )

I struggled a little to get into this book, but once I did I was wholly immersed. It's fascinating to see that Egan is already, in the 1990's, thinking about the themes that will make Goon Squad and Candy House so compelling. Look At Me makes me appreciate Egan's brilliance even more; she essentially anticipates so many elements of our modern culture, the fascinations and the traumas. I found the epigraph especially illuminating, and kept the idea that whoever we are looking at, we always see ourselves in mind as I was reading. It added a meditative layer to my reading, a purpose that I relished. That layer, on top of the compelling stories and mysteries of Egan's characters, made this a deeply satisfying and somewhat unsettling read. ( )