Super Sad True Love Story Gary Shteyngart ISBN: 978-1400066407 (US, Random House, Paperback) ISBN: 978-1847081032 (UK, Granta Books, Paperback)

Gary Shteyngart will not be a familiar name to science fiction fans – because he doesn't write science fiction. He's a mainstream writer, humorous and quite literary in feel. This, his third novel is no different - except in its setting. Super Sad True Love Story is set in a badly-dystopian near future – a total economic meltdown that makes our current woes insignificant.

America is no longer an economic giant, the dollar worthless. Social networking is king, you are your profile. Law is breaking down and New York becoming a police state. Against the chaos is one of the most improbable, but strangely touching, and undoubtedly funny love stories you could imagine.

Lenny Abramov is a middle aged Jewish salesman who falls totally for Eunice Park, a young Korean-American woman he meets at a party. Park is a flake who finds Abramov horrendously old and uncool. A relationship with him is the last thing on her mind. But you just know that's inevitably what she's going to get.

In essence what you have here is the kind of book George Orwell might have written had he been a mischievous Russian-born, New York based Jewish writer with a seriously wicked twinkle in his eye and a satirical slant to his writing.

The book's format, a series of blog and diary entries, IM conversations, emails and occasional face-to-face encounters does, at times, feel overdone – trendy content for the sake of appearing “current”. But it's a book unlike many other you will read. Probably ever.

Page updated 25 March, 2011