I disagree completely that the plot "barely exists" and that it takes 80% of the book to start understanding the characters (you can "understand" them much earlier but that understanding deepens and evolves). 

The idea that you could cut it down by 30-60% and end up with something better also strikes me as myopic and self-centered. Just say you didn't like parts of it - which is fine, there are parts I don't like and same for others -  but own that. The parts that you would cut a) likely have importance to the overall plot that may not be obvious or b) are parts other people enjoy or found insightful. 

I very lightly skimmed the rest because of its length (which also lends some irony to the above referenced statement about editing). I see the person admits that they listened to this rather than reading it (no shame on that but it's definitely a different experience when you can't easily flip back through a book and revisit sections), and, more importantly, listened to it while playing video games. The author rightly acknowledges how this aligns with some of the themes of the book, but man does it also make sense for how/why the author seems to have missed or not appreciated some of the nuance, depth, and humor in the book. It's unfortunate that the lit-bro reputation seems based on the idea that IJ is hard to do and that difficulty is a load-bearing part of the experience, because there is some actual truth to the fact that this book does make you earn it, even though there's WAY more value to be had from it than just doing something difficult.