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The main character even leaves his home country, in essence avoiding all consequence. But in a book with a sole narrator, we never see that aspect. The people around them are effected by their decisions and see the consequences of their actions. And Don Draper and characters like him (Bojack Horseman also comes to mind) are only meant to be sympathetic to a degree. His horrid nature is comedic, it isn’t meant to garner sympathy. But those characters don’t exactly line up. One Reddit user calls the unnamed narrator “Dennis Reynolds, Don Draper, and Holden Caulfield all mixed together”. You’re led to believe that he’ll be redeemed by the end. The first line has you prepared to read the guilty conscience of a man who enjoyed hurting women, emotionally torturing them out boredom. But he manipulates to his heart’s content.

He doesn’t abuse in a direct way, making a point to say that he never struck a woman. The narrator will describe a particularly cruel encounter. His male relationships are sparsely mentioned at all. The opening details the narrator’s bad treatment of the people around him, women primarily. He’ll blame the alcoholism or his upbringing, but in such a throwaway, nonchalant, self aggrandizing way that he does not win the sympathy like J.D. That should make him wiser, more sympathetic. That is not true of the Oxygen Thief, who is at every point older than Holden is. You gradually learn about his character in a natural way, even pitying him by the end. Holden is young, lost, disillusioned, but you understand him to a degree. The narrator in Diary of an Oxygen Thief is no Holden Caulfield. I adore Catcher in the Rye and often consider it one of my favorite books. But I feel so strongly in opposition to that. This book has been called Catcher in the Rye for the modern era. I’ve don’t know that I’ve ever hated a book more…ĭiary of an Oxygen Thief is an exercise in how long you can read on before throwing your hands up in defeat of the completely miserable, unforgivably foul protagonist.