The translation of this book from its native French just feels off and incomplete. Losing something in translation is expected with non-English text, but the way the characters speak and the plot is delivered is stilted and confusing, in a way unlike other translated works that I've read. For example, a character is placed in prison after a lengthy interrogation in one chapter and then inexplicably freed in the next.

The repetition ("Do you have the time" over and over) and lack of story progression were some other issues for me, plus the self insert character (a publisher character with the same initials as the author)? Some aspects I liked: the setting, descriptions of vibrant nightlife, and the meta aspects of Lucien's journey as a writer. 

This is not a book for the casual reader. This is dense, and it requires rapt attention. The author does a great job creating Tram 83 in the minds of the reader, with the music reflected in the rhythm of the prose, with the constant interjections in conversation, with the long paragraphs full of description. All of this gives the energy of a nightclub where no one ever sleeps, the air is thick and loud, and it's all a bit slimy. The book is very bleak, and it does not paint a kind picture of DRC. A lot of people complain that every woman is one-dimensional and is only viewed as a sexual object, but I think that's kind of the point. The men are all expendable too, they are all miners and students who routinely die needlessly. All they are depicted as doing is working or rioting. The women, conversely, are only depicted as being sex workers. That is clearly on purpose, it is not a failure of a man writing women, it is about how people in this environment have no choices, and they have resigned themselves to these stereotypes because that is the only way the rest of the world will let them survive. 
I didn't really like this book until the end when Requiem gets his comeuppance and then revels in ultimate victory. All of the characters were unlikeable, Requiem very hypocritical, the publisher glib and insincere, and Lucien naive and interloping. The world was well-built but not a pleasant place. 
The writing is very confusing, but just like A Clockwork Orange, you get used to it by the end. 

not the kind of book i like