The main character in the book, the narrator, is “Style”, Strauss’s alter ego who has transmformed from an AFC (average frustrated chump) to being ranked as the ‘greatest pickup artist in the world.’ Strauss doesn’t deny this title, and seems to bolster it’s legitimacy in the tawdry and fast-paced world of pickup before abandoning it for his former AFC self, more on that later.

The story starts with the “pre-Style” Strauss. He is a man who views himself to be average in accomplishment and life progress, mainly because he’s spent too much time thinking about the beautiful women he doesn’t have. Strauss spins this as somehow at the core of virtually every man, except for the rich and famous, or, the ‘natural,’ or at least these are the men we think of as having beautiful women. That seems like a stereotype on the face of it.

He tells the story of his friend “Dusty” who is a ‘natural’ at pickup (those who can naturally seduce women with little effort) and how he makes it his goal to learn how to pick up beautiful women as easily as a natural. Strauss is then on a life-consuming mission to seek out the greatest pickup gurus and get their secrets, learn them, and become a PUA (pickup artist) who can, after an early life of being scared and intimidated by beautiful women, pick up and sexually conquer HB’s (hot babes) at will. The greatest of these, at the time, is known as “Mystery.” He is a mentally unstable (possibly manic depressive) illusionist wanna-be (he never progresses in his career in the story) who dresses in outrageous get-ups and can seemingly get any woman he wants. Besides his ‘peacocking’ outfits, he dazzles potential ‘targets’ (women to be picked up) with magic tricks. One of the more interesting episodes is when he takes an expensive watch from a well known celebrity and performs an illusion to make the second hand stop, all to the amazement of the celebrity’s girlfriend, who later gives the illusionist her phone number right in front of the celebrity who declares to the ‘wing’ (one who accompanies the pickup artist to run interference for ‘blocks’) “Tell me this guy isn’t stealing my girlfriend.” Rather amazing……to the average male, but this is easy for the PUA.

It’s important to point out that the front matter of the book yields a hearty claim that “This really happened.” That claim becomes more important as the book progresses as the quantity of conquests, and the fallout, grows exponentially.

Strauss very early becomes “Style,” in the book. Every PUA uses a fake name in order to enhance the alter-ego. Mystery demands that he shave his head because he has a badly receded hairline. He also starts tanning, and working out, and he changes his wardrobe to be more ‘peacock.’ Style learns the ropes through paying money to accompany Mystery and other ‘students’ ($600 for a four day class) in real world bar situations to “sarge” (term for meeting women) women and get over their fears. The basic principles of sarging are Find, Meet, Attract, Close. “Closing is easily the most important aspect, and the ultimate proof of success. A good close is that the pickup artist walks away with a phone number, but there are several others. The top-shelf close is when you ‘open a set’ and end up having the HB go home with you that night, and only the seasoned pickup artist can do this. The secret to getting good openings begins as soon as the PUA walks, always smiling, into the room. The PUA is well dressed (at least in PUA terms), is funny, can socially connect with people, tries to establish social dominance (through being the alpha male) in the room and hence, in the ‘set’ (the setting, the group the target is in).

A basic principle of finding beautiful women is that 1) they are rarely found alone, and 2) You must isolate a beautiful woman in order to do a proper close. The tactics used within the ‘set’ are many, ranging from ‘cocky funny’ to ‘neuro-linguistic programming’ and many others. A ‘set’ consists of the setting of people wherein the beautiful woman, or the target, is found. The PUA goes into this setting, wins them over, and isolates the target. This is done in many ways. One of the most common tactics is the ‘neg’ or, negative comment. This is intended to make the target work for the attention of the PUA, because his first move is to ignore her in the set, but acknowledge her every few minutes with a ‘neg.’ This ‘creates value’ in Style speak. Then the PUA finally turns his attention to the target and begins the isolation process, and hopefully, the close. These dynamics are explicitly mentioned in the early part of the book. The balance of the book really doesn’t develop these concepts in detail. It simply sketches the results, and in particular, the group relationships and wily stunts of the most elite group of PUA’s. Strauss as Style has been picked up and ‘closed’ by the world of the PUA.

Style quickly becomes part of the inner circle and we are given an insider’s view of “Project Hollywood,” the brainchild of the ever narcisssistic Mystery. This group of the foremost PUA’s leases a house in Hollywood, a former residence of Dean Martin, in order to have a home base for their operations, with added perk that they can bring their never ending conquests (including MLTR’s, or multiple long-term relationships)back to a cool house. Roughly the last half of the book takes place at “Project Hollywood.” The narrative becomes highly repetitious, tallying conquest after conquest, with a little personal aftermath for Style in some cases, and ultimately showing how Mystery, as well as the whole project, completely unravel in a miasma of personal resentment, heartbreak, violence (Mystery repeatedly destroys parts of the house) and personal rivalry. After all…..there are some big egos operating here and some of the rather slimy interactions that are the stuff of “The Jerry Springer Show” and easily could have been left out. Nevertheless, Strauss is true to the situation.

Style is completely absorbed in the lifestyle…..at points even looking at life itself as one big pickup. Business relationships are just pickup, the metaphor applies across the board. Style becomes the best, bar none, and Mystery, his rival, is committed to a mental hospital. He creates enemies, but his conquest and sexual prowess are apparently beyond the point that Strauss, qua Style, would ever have imagined, and he likes it. He seems to suffer guilt for both how easy it is to pickup women and how good at it he has become. He seems to struggle more with upholding the image of Style than making the next conquest. This seems more the stuff of self-absoption than heatlhy social dynamics. Style, as well as the master PUA’s seem to operate on one overarching principle; ”remember, the whole relationship is about you.” So much for healthy relationships. Another important principle emerges…..that basically, anyone can do this, it’s not just for the rich and famous, or naturals. Anyone can learn these techniques. Raise a glass to Strauss here…..the best point in the book.

Like a degenerating research project….it all begins to grind to a miserable halt. There are now so many new faces, or “robots” as Style calls them, in the picture, that he begins to lose interest. The new breed of PUA’s, who learned from Mystery and Style, are now operating lucrative businesses out of the house, and ostracizing Mystery and Strauss. In carefully executed plots, the resident PUA, Papa, who is the business manager, and leasee of the property, manipulates Style to make the decision to throw Mystery out of the house, and, Mystery’s own violent and destructive episodes certainly don’t help him.

Several celebrity interludes show up in the narrative, one of them will sound the death-knell for Style’s involvement in the community. Rock-star Courtney Love actually lives in the house for several months. The guitarist in Love’s band becomes Style’s love interest. He get’s “one-it is” which is considered a curse to the PUA because it focuses on just one woman and the possibility of a long-term relationship, and PUA’s just can’t have that. This particular HB10 (hot babe who is a ten) is clearly on Style’s radar….and he’s the best pickup artist in the world. Her name is Lisa….look out Lisa.

She doesn’t go for it…..not in the least. She likes Strauss the person, the nerd with glasses that she sees underneath, rather than Style, greatest PUA in the world. Style has to become a pickup artist that is not a pickup artist in order to win over Lisa. He really wants a long-term relationship with this wonderful lady, but he can’t do it as a pickup artists. At every turn….even his most advanced and well trained techniques….she roundly rebuffs them and even ignores him for a while. “Now who’s the pickup artist?” some may ask. Style eventually gives up his room at Project Hollywood and starts a relationship proper with Lisa and realizes that everything about being a PUA is contrary to having a meaningful relationship. Good points are made about the value of being a PUA to at least meet and socialize with beautiful women. One can easily question such statements since the majority of the pickups in the books were in Los Angeles bars and strip-clubs and that the ‘targets’ are almost exclusively ‘party women’ and strippers and the various hangers-on that patronize said places. If Strauss’s demographic for the PUA included a larger chunk of Americana, it might be more believable.

Critically speaking, this book shows a series of master pick up artists and their cronies being pickup artists and the often X-rated exploits that follow. This book does not tell how to be a pickup artist as much as what it’s like to be one, a third-person education, so to speak. The narrative is long on slime and psychosis and conflict, and short on substance. Moreover, perhaps these things are the norm in the world of the PUA. Either way, Strauss gets points for maintaining modesty and rationality in the midst of all this. Style easily comes across as the most ‘together’ of the whole coterie of Project Hollywood, and possibly the PUA community proper, but that doesn’t recommend him much considering that Style himself sees Courtney Love (??) as the most “together” occupant of Project Hollywood.

Psychologically speaking, from the point of being a man who tries to be the best man he can, rather than something he’s not; what’s the point of having two identities? Doesn’t a good man, a real man, an alpha male, have a solid set of principles? Why does a real man need a gloss of peacock clothes, magic tricks, and high flying but empty lifestyle to snap into when he wants to meet a beautiful woman? Isn’t patiently going about trying to meet a beautiful woman, just as you are, enough? Style didn’t think so. Honesty, integrity, protection of the weak, doing good deeds….don’t these principles matter? Not to the PUA. The PUA principles are based on calculated interactions to pick up and conquer physically beautiful women, period. What about long-term relationships? What about educated, professional women that don’t go to bars? Women that are not strippers? Women that dedicate themselves to teaching children? Women that might even go to church? What about women who want to be excellent mothers and wives, and who want solid, loyal husbands? Why don’t women like this show up in the story? What about men who want to be excellent husbands and fathers? Apparently, these just don’t figure into the self obsessed world of the PUA. Mystery and Style just don’t seem like the fatherly type. “Yes son…I wear the red leopard-striped cowboy hat to pick up women, I’ll be back later.” Why do the PUA’s all seem to border on the narcissistic fringe? Why do PUA’s disparage the notion of falling in love? One of the best quotes in the book comes from actor Tom Cruise, who Style is socially connected to…..Cruise says, in response to Style’s statement that falling in love is cheesy…….”What’s cheesy about falling in love?” Style admits that Cruise had AMOG’d (exerted alpha male dominance over) him. Good for Cruise. The PUA life seems like a much narrower slice of life than the peacocking of the lifestyle would indicate. Few if any of the participants in Project Hollywood have a life, one of them drops out of school, one goes to a mental hospital, most of them have some key indicators of family problems in childhood, and the only regular income is from teaching others the PUA lifestyle, which, no surprise here, includes simply taking students out to bars and watching the PUA’s do their thing. Surely there is more to happy, healthy, interaction with beautiful women than this.

Further, this reviewer came away rather empty after sitting through the four hundred plus pages of the book and was not being moved to sign up for a PUA class, of which there are many, apparently. Specifically, the reviewer is left thinking, why even think of trying to be a PUA? To meet beautiful women, of course. Why meet beautiful women? To hopefully have a long term relationship. Hey wait…the PUA just wants to sexually conquer them and move on to the next one. The reviewer will be forced to stick to a life of far fewer beautiful women and not be a PUA, but doubtless, many will clamor to soak up this detailed insider’s view and salivate over the details of the many conquests. To each his own. The optimistic reviewer could camp on the fact that it’s a personal improvement to meet and conquer lot’s of women, but the book bares out exactly the opposite, even Style gives it up at the end…and, remember, he’s the best.

Okay......so…it’s necessary to go ‘sarging’ in bars and strip-clubs night after night, and open sets to get number close in order to meet your dream woman you want to be with only to stop being a PUA because it doesn’t work in a meaningful, committed relationship? Why not just skip the PUA stuff, dress well, exercise, speak well, have good posture and basic social skills, get over your shyness, do interesting things in life, have a sense of humor, and make it a point to talk to beautiful women? Is it better to fail with a woman as yourself, or succeed as something your not? To the PUA, the “something you’re not” is the whole thing.

Essentially, look at this book as a long winded redux of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” with gender specific behavioral cues and personal makeovers. Pour a coating of slimy sexual escapades and chaotic group dynamics and massive egos in conflict, then a stripper or two, and you have ‘The Game.’ Strauss, or Style, actually tells us at one point that he is, at that very moment in his writing, having sex with a beautiful woman, and leaves the spelling errors intact as some sort’ve evidence. Thanks Style, but was that necessary? We’ve already been warned that all of this is ‘really happened,’ remember? Strauss does a good job in refraining from any social leveling here….which is probably best for his own credibility, but the book reeks of trashy bar scenes and easy one nighters. And one must be a ‘pro’ to do this?

Hence….the flimsy artifice of the world of PUA, and it’s greatest practitioner, is both built and easily tumbled by the same man……and he could’ve taken a lot less of our time to do so and left out the smutty details. But Strauss has to sell books, even slimy ones. He’s co-authored a book about having sex like a porn star, so he’s perfectly willing to hit below the belt. I wonder if Lisa approves.

Duane K. Estill is a philosopher and social critic living in Memphis, TN. He is currently preparing a book of Maxims to be published next year. He is a direct descendant of a French Lord and ascribes to the strictest principles of gentlemanly behaviour.