Stoffel was shaken by his breakup with Warboy, who\u2019d been both a lover and a best friend. Not long after, someone offered to sublet Luke\u2019s New York apartment (via an Airbnb app) for an entire month; the author, seeing this as a chance to escape, used the money to fly out to Laos, a country he\u2019d been to before and remembered fondly. After landing in Laos, he quickly reunited with Ohme, someone else he\u2019d once loved. Stoffel traveled around Vietnam as well, from Hanoi to Ha Long City. While he savored many a sight, like any other tourist, he also faced plenty of trouble, including the subletters\u2019 recurring problems in New York, worry that his damaged iPhone couldn\u2019t be fixed, and quite a few unsavory hotel rooms. All the while, the author could only hope that his grief would subside, along with his loneliness, which he\u2019d been feeling even before his split with Warboy. Despite many obstacles, Stoffel remained in Southeast Asia and eventually got the sense that he was \u201cclimbing back to himself.\u201d Throughout the narrative, scenes with an AI chatbot intermittently appear; this AI, which the author had previously turned to for advice, observed and analyzed Stoffel\u2019s experiences during his trip (presumably as it happened). At the same time, the AI gradually began to \u201cempathize\u201d with the human and may have evolved into something more than it was.<\/p>\n
Stoffel delivers the bulk of this real-life account in a third-person voice. The story still feels personal, as readers are privy to what\u2019s going on inside the author\u2019s head. (\u201cThis wasn\u2019t the first time he\u2019d spun out like this, burning through patience, second-guessing every choice, longing for ease and punishing himself when it didn\u2019t come.\u201d) Many of the difficulties he endured are relatable, like impatiently waiting for someone to answer a text during a crisis or getting on the wrong bus. Rapidly dwindling funds were a constant concern, even before he caught his initial flight out of the States, lending the story a tension that rarely lets up. There\u2019s no doubt that Stoffel wrestled with overwhelming emotions during his journey; he occasionally broke into tears and at one point felt completely detached while immersed in Vietnam\u2019s lovely environment (a lapse for which the author admonishes himself). Stoffel effectively spotlights the terrain he traversed, including the beauty of chaotic Hanoi streets and a picturesque village that he compares to the Hobbits\u2019 Shire and describes as \u201cwalking into a dream.\u201d The generally lighthearted moments with the AI don\u2019t hinder the book\u2019s nimbleness, since they\u2019re relatively brief and often stylized as coding (\u201c\/\/ observational.log.013 \u2026thinking\u2026 5.1 seconds elapsed\u201d). The AI\u2019s observations tend to be both insightful and funny, such as its conclusion that \u201chookup platforms reinforce rejection as ambient norm.\u201d It engagingly chats with the author as it begins to understand both him and itself, solidifying this memoir\u2019s tie to Stoffel\u2019s book Boy, Refracted (2026). <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stoffel was shaken by his breakup with Warboy, who\u2019d been both a lover and a best friend. Not long after, someone offered to sublet Luke\u2019s New York apartment (via an Airbnb app) for an entire month; the author, seeing this as a chance to escape, used the money to fly out to Laos, a country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6478"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}