officially the book with the worst title i have read in a while

cxxvi. the marriage plot, jeffrey eugenides
my expectations were low to begin with after a friend said that it was not worth rushing out to buy. so it actually started well, and compared to the books i read just before it, i read most of the words for real and was drawn along by the pace of writing. i kept looking for something deeper than 'which boy will she end up with?' and realised after the first half that what i thought was going to be the introduction to something further was never going to get there.
let me compare this to jonathan franzen's freedom, since they both have david foster wallace tributes, which frankly i don't care so much about. at least the marriage plot's characters were mostly likeable, whereas freedom's characters were mostly unlikeable. i enjoyed the setting of the 80s more, it seems more like a real book for some reason. i don't really understand why freedom's generation y late 2000s setting and feel was so annoying to me. it felt vacuous like a mcmansion. with the wrong kind of offputting american arrogance. but comparatively the marriage plot was so small in scope. like a nothing much. engaging writing, to be sure, but i expected deeper.
also where are the women in this authorial boys' club? that's what i really want to know.