ill-spent

Rose is eager to ditch what she regards as an ill-spent life, and she ends up sharing a rental car with Teddy, who is also deeply dissatisfied but tries to be an upbeat companion.

Referring to foreign earthquake aid after 2010 that Haitians said was ill-spent, he called for all assistance to be channeled through the state.

Narrated by the ghost of a construction worker from Fukushima who spent his last years in a camp of homeless people in Tokyo’s Ueno Park, Yu’s “glorious modernist novel,” as our reviewer, Abhrajyoti Chakraborty, called it, weaves together overheard conversations, loudspeaker announcements and regretful memories of an ill-spent life.

On June 20, he tweeted: “For me, a tweetless night, like tonight, is an empty, ill-spent, fruitless night, not worthy of owning a computer or its keyboard.”

Keeping something just because you think you should wear it is a constant reminder of the ill-spent money.