Critical Praise
"My American Unhappiness effectively mixes dark humor with a zany momentum that draws the reader deeper into the book . . . very funny . . . Bakopoulos proves his skill as a storyteller."—Dallas Morning News
"A fresh-spirited, timely satire . . . My American Unhappiness is a novel of First World problems, but it's so in touch with that state of privilege that it won't abide taking it all, or itself, too seriously . . . Far and away, the book's best asset is its deft consideration of satire, one that isn't bunkered down with an egoist's judgmental take on what ails us. Instead, this novel grabs at the problems and roughhouses with them a bit, for sport and affection. It's the ultimate Midwestern act of tough love, as if the setting and its inherent values have penetrated the book's core." —Los Angeles Times
"[Zeke] is a perfectly imperfect avatar of the the 2000s decade . . . Bakopoulos often provides his first-person narrator with long passages of cultural analysis that are simultaneously insightful and preposterous, transcendent and banal, mystical and pedestrian."—Iowa City Press Citizen
"Hilarious and heartfelt . . . This funny-sad novel seems to take elements of the author's own life (happily married, with kids) and twists them in a funhouse mirror—with delightful results." —NPR.org, Indie Booksellers Target Summer's Best Reads
"[Bakopoulos is] working here in a new, hypomanic prose style; the jokes come fast and furious, and the steady narration of the previous novel has given way to a wry, edgy self-mockery . . . a winning distraction, a smart entertainment for smart guys . . . There's enough originality and earnestness here, and in his previous book, to suggest the possibility of great future success." —J. Robert Lennon, New York Times Book Review
"So funny you may miss this novel's slyly profound message." —Oprah.com BookFinder
"[My American Unhappiness ] shimmers with mischief and offbeat charm . . . a dark entertainment infused by a bluesy yearning for a better America."--Kirkus Reviews
"Bakopoulos writes with great heart and a cold eye, and his limpid, ironic prose will appeal to those who like the early work of Martin Amis." --Library Journal
"My American Unhappiness is a smart, funny, charming novel -- an incisive critique of the way we live now, but armed, unlike most contemporary satire, with a big, generous heart. I got addicted to the misadventures of Zeke Pappas. I didn't want the book to end." -- Dan Chaon, Await Your Reply
"If the nature of despair, as Kierkegaard wrote, is to be unaware of itself, then Zeke Pappas is its perfect spokesman: a blithely deluded nebbish whose epic longings -- to document the emptiness at the center of American life and to win the heart of Sofia Coppola and/or his local Starbucks barista -- propel him into ever more twisted predicaments. There's no such thing as unhappiness when you're holding a Dean Bakopoulos novel in your hands."-- Jonathan Miles, Dear American Airlines
"Vivid as a searchlight gliding across suburban picture windows , MY AMERICAN UNHAPPINESS displays its author's saddened comic wisdom, as apparently self-effacing as it is marvelously inventive and observant. Dean Bak"Vivid as a searchlight gliding across suburban picture windows , MY AMERICAN UNHAPPINESS displays its author's saddened comic wisdom, as apparently self-effacing as it is marvelously inventive and observant. Dean Bakopoulos is a writer to watch, a novelist to cherish."-- Peter Straub, A Dark Matter
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