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2.59 AVERAGE
2.59 AVERAGE
Little loopy and ending was an interesting take, but enjoyable as a 'I'll only read it once in my lifetime" book.
Honestly, I preferred the film over the book. Not usually the case with me.
Honestly, I preferred the film over the book. Not usually the case with me.
Yeah, I got the book with the movie poster cover :( Not a big fan of movie poster covers, but it was what was available (I bought this from a thrift store). Anyway.
I hadn't seen the movie before reading the book, though I did watch it after reading the book. They're really quite different as they focus on different themes and have different plots and that character Anna Kendrick plays isn't even in the novel, so there's hardly a point in comparing the two. However, it was from seeing the trailer of the movie that got me interested in the book in the first place.
Up In The Air is about Ryan Bingham, who works for CTC -- Career Transition Counselling. He helps people who have been laid off reassess their strengths and weaknesses and find new hope in their unemployment. Or, in other words, Ryan fires people for a living and tries to get the ex-employees to not do anything crazy like sue the company. Ryan doesn't really like his job, but he does like collecting frequent flyer miles points. In fact, his goal is to collect one million points, and he's really close. He plans to quit his job, work for his dream company in a dream job and write a book after it's all said and done. But his last week of flying is somehow really stressing him out -- he's not sure what his dream company even really does or how to contact them, his potential publisher won't stay in one spot and his flighty sister who is about to get married soon is driving him up the wall.
First things first, I loved the writing style of this book. It's present tense, first person narrator, and Ryan speaks to you like he's holding a conversation with you. Which does include the occasional tangent, but they're interesting and more often than not, rather funny. I really loved the way the author wrote and spoke to his reader, even within the witty remarks and black humor, it was seriously fun writing.
The book starts off great, I was really into it. However, somewhere near the last third of the book, the story got kind of ... weird. I was following along fine, and then all of a sudden, I became really confused, like I wasn't sure if I was reading anything correctly. I think Ryan was on drugs at one point and, as he was the narrator, it messed up what he was experiencing so as the reader, I was also getting really confused. I think everything started going wrong for him so he started taking some drugs, or started admitting to the reader he was taking drugs ... ? But I'm not really sure if he was on drugs, maybe he was just going insane. He seemed to be losing his marbles. I just had no idea what was happening anymore, and I can't really tell you how the book ended because, well, I don't know. I read it, but I don't know what I read.
Despite the ending kind of falling apart on me there, I did enjoy this book a lot, especially the writing.
I hadn't seen the movie before reading the book, though I did watch it after reading the book. They're really quite different as they focus on different themes and have different plots and that character Anna Kendrick plays isn't even in the novel, so there's hardly a point in comparing the two. However, it was from seeing the trailer of the movie that got me interested in the book in the first place.
Up In The Air is about Ryan Bingham, who works for CTC -- Career Transition Counselling. He helps people who have been laid off reassess their strengths and weaknesses and find new hope in their unemployment. Or, in other words, Ryan fires people for a living and tries to get the ex-employees to not do anything crazy like sue the company. Ryan doesn't really like his job, but he does like collecting frequent flyer miles points. In fact, his goal is to collect one million points, and he's really close. He plans to quit his job, work for his dream company in a dream job and write a book after it's all said and done. But his last week of flying is somehow really stressing him out -- he's not sure what his dream company even really does or how to contact them, his potential publisher won't stay in one spot and his flighty sister who is about to get married soon is driving him up the wall.
First things first, I loved the writing style of this book. It's present tense, first person narrator, and Ryan speaks to you like he's holding a conversation with you. Which does include the occasional tangent, but they're interesting and more often than not, rather funny. I really loved the way the author wrote and spoke to his reader, even within the witty remarks and black humor, it was seriously fun writing.
The book starts off great, I was really into it. However, somewhere near the last third of the book, the story got kind of ... weird. I was following along fine, and then all of a sudden, I became really confused, like I wasn't sure if I was reading anything correctly. I think Ryan was on drugs at one point and, as he was the narrator, it messed up what he was experiencing so as the reader, I was also getting really confused. I think everything started going wrong for him so he started taking some drugs, or started admitting to the reader he was taking drugs ... ? But I'm not really sure if he was on drugs, maybe he was just going insane. He seemed to be losing his marbles. I just had no idea what was happening anymore, and I can't really tell you how the book ended because, well, I don't know. I read it, but I don't know what I read.
Despite the ending kind of falling apart on me there, I did enjoy this book a lot, especially the writing.
Quite different from the film adaptation - dips into the surreal and uncanny as it becomes increasingly clear that the protagonist is not exactly mentally sound.
Has vibes of White Noise (DeLillo), Glamorama (Easton Ellis), and High-Rise (Ballard) in airport form. Something about the writing style and the collapse of the main character. Needless to say, quite a bit darker than the film, but a fun read.
Has vibes of White Noise (DeLillo), Glamorama (Easton Ellis), and High-Rise (Ballard) in airport form. Something about the writing style and the collapse of the main character. Needless to say, quite a bit darker than the film, but a fun read.
Um. This is uncomfortable. The movie was at least twenty times better than the book.
its hard to compete with george clooney, but this was so different from what i was expecting after the movie. its way more depressing and the main character is totally falling apart. good for the movie adapters because i would not have watched this movie.
The novel started out strong but wandered all over the place in the second half. Perhaps it was Kirn's intention to show the unraveling of the main character through the unraveling of the narrative and writing style, but I'm not sure if I felt anything when I finished reading, even though the setup promised some self-reflection.
The film adaptation improved on the novel, taking the best aspects, but providing a tighter story and clearer meaning.
The film adaptation improved on the novel, taking the best aspects, but providing a tighter story and clearer meaning.
When I picked this up at the library, I was thinking of another book, and I also maybe didn't realize it was fiction, even though I was in the fiction section. (The sections in my local library branch aren't hard and fast rules so much as general suggestions, largely ignored.) I was already a chapter in when I realized it was written by Kirn, who also wrote Thumbsucker, which I also disliked. For me, he's trying way too hard to be Chuck Palahniuk, and since I can barely tolerate Palahniuk actual, I have even less patience for his imitators. Also, he switches tense into and out of the second person a lot and I had to go back and re-read sections to figure out who the "you" was, and I have no truck for such a poor handle on grammar.
I had a professor mention once that she has a hard time connecting to a written work when she doesn't trust or like the narrator. And ever since she put that into my head, I've had a hard time connecting with a book when I don't connect with the narrator. And Ryan and I couldn't get on the same page. The corporate stuff is a little too heavy handed for me, as well. I think maybe I would have been happier if the whole book had been his conversations with random people on different flights.
Probably my one star rating is a little harsh. If I had more distance from this, or more patience and forgiveness in my personality, I'd probably give it 2 stars. I mean, I finished it. And there were parts that were engaging enough to make me want to see how it ended. But it was a chore. And if I'm going to be totally honest, I feel a special animosity towards this book because I selected to read on my beach vacation, so when it felt like a chore I was extra aware because who wants to do a chore on the beach?
I had a professor mention once that she has a hard time connecting to a written work when she doesn't trust or like the narrator. And ever since she put that into my head, I've had a hard time connecting with a book when I don't connect with the narrator. And Ryan and I couldn't get on the same page. The corporate stuff is a little too heavy handed for me, as well. I think maybe I would have been happier if the whole book had been his conversations with random people on different flights.
Probably my one star rating is a little harsh. If I had more distance from this, or more patience and forgiveness in my personality, I'd probably give it 2 stars. I mean, I finished it. And there were parts that were engaging enough to make me want to see how it ended. But it was a chore. And if I'm going to be totally honest, I feel a special animosity towards this book because I selected to read on my beach vacation, so when it felt like a chore I was extra aware because who wants to do a chore on the beach?
It’s been 11 years since I read this book and I still think about how much I hated it.
I saw the movie first, then picked up the book. The book is actually significantly different from the movie. It's hard to judge how I liked the book on its own since I spent most of the time reading it thinking of how it compared to the movie. I really enjoyed the movie, but I think the book was just decent.