Nothing matters and everything is terrible.

Christos Tsiolkas presents a relentless parade of racism, homophobia and misogyny and tries to pass it off as belonging to his characters rather than himself, but it's difficult not to think that the men and women between these pages aren't just mouthpieces for his agenda of systematically destroying Australia.

This book has no bearing on reality, and none of the characters or their actions are believable. Tsiolkas closes the novel out with a chapter about a closeted kid just out of high school, and he knows a little bit about this topic, but ultimately Richie is a punching bag who has to take on unreasonable drama for a relatively neat ending to occur.

It is more than somewhat shameful that this book has been exported to other countries; we should have kept it to ourselves. Someone on the inside is capable of processing the monumental fakery of The Slap; an unsuspecting American or British person might take it as reflective of this place, and I wouldn't be able to blame them for hating us forever after.