The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits
Published 2025 · 240 pages · 60,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is The Rest of Our Lives to read?
The Rest of Our Lives scores 52 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 52 out of 100
- Markovits writes in accessible, observant prose that captures the vocabulary of American family life and midlife reflection. The language is clear while conveying the specific textures of marriage, academia, and cross-country travel.
- Sentence structure: 52 out of 100
- Sentences are controlled and emotionally honest, building through accumulated observation of what a marriage has become. Markovits's prose has the patience of someone recording the small revelations of a road trip.
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- The novel explores marriage, aging, and what remains when children leave through Tom's impulsive detour. His drive across America becomes an occasion to examine what he and his wife have built and whether it's enough.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- American landscapes, academic life, and the textures of long marriage layer through the road trip. Markovits builds his portrait through accumulated attention to motels, phone calls, and the memories that surface while driving.
- Narrative indirection: 52 out of 100
- Tom's perspective reveals both what he understands about his marriage and what he's avoiding. The reader must interpret his detour—what is he running from, what is he hoping to find?
- Symbolic density: 52 out of 100
- The road trip becomes symbolic of escape that can't escape. The empty nest becomes symbolic of identity crisis when parenting ends. The cross-country drive becomes symbolic of trying to find yourself in motion.
- Ironic distance: 50 out of 100
- Markovits maintains wry proximity to Tom's midlife questions without judging them. The novel is sympathetic about the confusions of aging while honest about self-indulgence.
- Resolution withholding: 52 out of 100
- Tom makes choices about what to do next. Markovits offers the decision without promising it resolves anything about what the rest of their lives will hold.
- Structural complexity: 50 out of 100
- The novel follows a single road trip with embedded reflections. The structure is accessible, using the journey to organize retrospection about a marriage.
How The Rest of Our Lives is regarded
The Rest of Our Lives holds a literary regard score of 47 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.