Things you need to know about Michael Dahlie’s The Best of Youth: It takes place in Brooklyn. It features a sensitive, but clueless 20-something who spends his free time writing short stories. There is a manic pixie dream girl who plays the viola in an all-girl band. What will surprise you about this novel: It’s still a tremendous triumph of humor and imagination. While Dahlie’s world might be too whimsical and unlikely (the main character’s parents die in a freak boating accident leaving him $15 million and a successful actor chooses him to ghostwrite his young adult novel), the author effortlessly infuses the comedy-of-manners and aw-shucks character that constantly leaves socially inept, privileged Henry with the fuzzy end of the lollipop with something akin to sympathy. Even when I hated it, I loved it.