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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
I honestly don’t even know where to start with this review. My husband recommended this book to me about a year ago. We are both voracious readers and I can & have poured through an entire book in one sitting. This book bothered me on so many levels. This entire book was like one long run on sentence. I couldn’t deal with the stream of consciousness dialogs. It drove me insane. I put this book down several times and I forced myself to get to the end because I kept hoping that there will be some amazing ending. Nope. The only reason I rated this one star was because living in the Bay Area I enjoyed knowing the places the author describes in the book. Other than that, … I was over him and the blasted story by the 2nd chapter. It was truly painful to read. Multiple times I wanted to throw it across the room. My husband kept telling me to stop reading it but I feel like I can’t give a fair review of a book unless I’ve completed it. Complete rubbish. It took me 9 months to finish it. The author seems self -absorbed and self-important and I had a hard time just simply reading his writing. It felt like a verbal regurgitation on paper.
This book is cringily relatable.
His sensory descriptions of death and dying are so visceral and real — content warning I guess?
I know a lot of people think that his entitled 20-something admissions ruined the book, but to me it felt (slightly self-depricatingly) honest in a way that most of us would be too ashamed to commit to paper.
i.e. cringily relatable.
Shed a lot of tears while reading, think I’m glad I read it.
His sensory descriptions of death and dying are so visceral and real — content warning I guess?
I know a lot of people think that his entitled 20-something admissions ruined the book, but to me it felt (slightly self-depricatingly) honest in a way that most of us would be too ashamed to commit to paper.
i.e. cringily relatable.
Shed a lot of tears while reading, think I’m glad I read it.
So, yeah, the title is annoying. It's "po-mo." It's precious. The cool kids are apparently past this kind of hyper-self-aware earnestness, and it's not very hip to admit a liking for either Eggers or McSweeney's these days. But, but, but...this book changed my life. It changed the way I think about writing, about humor, about the essay as a form, about - yes, here I go - life. This book is sweet, hilarious, terribly sad, and ultimately hopeful without succumbing to gross sentiment or self-pity. Yeah, maybe some of the stylistic devices are a bit too "cute" in 2009, but I'm glad somebody's doing them - did them, made them the old standbys they are now. Experimentation, honesty, beauty. Yes, Dave Eggers - yes.
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
I go back and forth on this. While I appreciate a memoir not presenting as nonfiction (I have mixed emotions about the genre in general) sometimes the self awareness irritated me. It's rambling felt almost dated at this point (as I read this over 20 years after it was published) but I can at the same time appreciate the attempt at a different approach.
Heard such good things about it but can never get into it. Will keep trying...
A more apt description of the contents of a book has never existed in a title. This book undid me; Eggers writes with such raw power and open intimacy that it's almost unbearable. The absolutely devastating events are told in a way that is both heartbreaking and humorous: Eggers manages to do it with such a deft hand that you're almost through it before the reality of the subject matter hits you over the head yet again, and you're falling back into despair.
Eggers holds nothing back here, letting his readers see the most unfiltered version of himself; even the imagined events and reactions hold an echo of truth to them, making them even more hard-hitting. This was the second Eggers' novel I've read, but I suspect it'll stay at the top of my list when I read more of his work. If you're ready to be moved, shaken, and inspired by the resilience of the human spirit (albeit one embodied by a young, irreverent man), pick this one up soon.
Eggers holds nothing back here, letting his readers see the most unfiltered version of himself; even the imagined events and reactions hold an echo of truth to them, making them even more hard-hitting. This was the second Eggers' novel I've read, but I suspect it'll stay at the top of my list when I read more of his work. If you're ready to be moved, shaken, and inspired by the resilience of the human spirit (albeit one embodied by a young, irreverent man), pick this one up soon.