If I could sum this book up in one word: painful. In two words: painful and tedious. In several hundred words:

As my first exposure to Sartre’s thoughts on existence, Nausea is an effective demonstration of how the novel can lead the reader to examine the surrounding world in a different way. Sartre’s observations can lead you to recognize previously unsettling notions and feelings within reality.

As the lead character, Antoine Roquentin laboriously records his every thought in his journal (which Sartre has supposedly “found”;hence a clever start to the story) I found myself in a world very similar to Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Elizabeth Moon’s The Speed of Dark, a world where my mind melds with the thoughts of the protagonist. Unfortunately in this case, that level of laborious detail was tedious for the first 70-80 pages. Painful to read, the bright spots are the cynical and somber observations. Once Roquentin finds himself uninterested in his current work, a historical account of Marquis de Rollebon, I was hooked. I had a hard time putting the story away or out of mind once his diatribe against existence begins,  continuing later in the story by discussions with “the Self-Taught Man” and his old lover, Anny. This wasn’t an enjoyable read, its not supposed to be. If I was devoid of meaning and thought about how absurd everything is, perhaps I would be struck with bouts of nausea too. By committing yourself to this story, you are committing yourself to seeing the world in a different way, unshielded from hope and glittering generalities. Just the painful numbness of existence without meaning. Fortunately, a feeling I don’t have.

Lines that stood out to me From Roquentin’s Journal:

“And then professionals and even amateurs always end up by being right. Their wisdom prompts them to make the least possible noise, to live as little as possible, to let themselves be forgotten. Their best stories are about the rash and the original, who were chastised. Yes, that’s how it happens and no one will say the contrary.”

“They come out of their offices after their day of work, they look at their houses and the squares with satisfaction. They think it is their city, a good solid bourgeois city. They aren’t afraid, they feel at home… they have proof, a hundred times a day, that everything happens mechanically.”
After posting my review, I noticed that other GoodReads users had similar thoughts:

If you live in Florida, lets say Ft. Lauderdale, don’t read this book… especially when you’re trying to pay the bills by working in a call center and you’re aweful at telemarketing and you’re roommate is weird and depressed and everyone around you is fake and plastic. That’s my only warning. Otherwise, it’s a great book.
i found my own internal dialogs disappointingly mundane after reading this book. clearly i need to avail myself of more stimulants.