Rabbit by John Updike

Not an American dystopian novel but and American dystopian life.  The book depicts 3 months in the life of a 26 year old former high school basketball player, Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom, in a loveless marriage, boring job and his attempts to escape this life of mundanity.  On the spur of the moment he leaves his wife and drives south to his home town trying to regain some of his high school glory days and find the spark in life that has left.  The novel goes on to describe the vicissitudes of Harry's life, how he changes it, the people and women.  
Updike says of his book that "My subject is the American Protestant small-town middle class.  I like middles. It is in middles that extremes clash, where ambiguity restlessly rules".  He goes on to say that when he "looked around in 1959 he saw a number of scared dodgy men who could not make commitments, men who peaked in high school and existed in a downward spiral.  Their idea of happiness was to be young.  Thus Rabbit, Run was born".
This book was found by many to be 'boring' by others to be beautifully descriptive and others just middling.  It wasn't an easy read, but did generate some interesting discussions about mid America , the cultural changes that were going on.

Words used to describe it:  Groundhog Day, depressing, wanting to portray something dismal in beautiful writing, great characterization, of it's era, forensically detailed,

Marks out of 10:  between 5 - 9 so very varied

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House of Mirth by Edith Wharton