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gperry's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
meganstreb's review against another edition
3.0
He writes well about his characters. I felt that I understood the main character in much the same way as Willy Loman-- I understood aspects of his frustration, his inertia, his disconnect--and yet I just couldn't fully empathise.
Maybe I just don't like reading about characters who fail. I want the struggle to succeed, not the monotony of a daily resignation that life isn't what it was meant to be. And maybe that makes me a pawn in the capitalist system. . . .
Maybe I just don't like reading about characters who fail. I want the struggle to succeed, not the monotony of a daily resignation that life isn't what it was meant to be. And maybe that makes me a pawn in the capitalist system. . . .
lindseysparks's review against another edition
3.0
Despite enjoying Mcsweeney's, I didn't think I'd like Dave Eggers' books. And I'd read that this one wasn't a favorite of even his fans, but I picked it up at a library book sale in pristine condition for $1.
Eggers does a good job of showing us his story. This type of character often falls into navel gazing and telling the reader things. That doesn't happen here. I liked the setting in Saudi Arabia and the commentary on business decisions and adapting with the times, bringing about your own obsoletness. Surprisingly solid story and enjoyable writing.
Eggers does a good job of showing us his story. This type of character often falls into navel gazing and telling the reader things. That doesn't happen here. I liked the setting in Saudi Arabia and the commentary on business decisions and adapting with the times, bringing about your own obsoletness. Surprisingly solid story and enjoyable writing.
glimnore's review against another edition
5.0
This book was sad, it was morbidly depressing, and the delivery was incredibly dry and miserable.
And yet, it was absolutely amazing.
Marketed off as a "Who we are and how we got there"; this book can almost be compared to as a hybrid between a memoir and a satire that (as I interpreted it) effectively calls out the country taking the easy road to economic malfunction.
Bravo to Eggers for crafting an incredibly well-written, well-told, and compelling story that does in fact remind us that there is a sliver of hope for the country in the grand scheme of things...
-Lyf-
And yet, it was absolutely amazing.
Marketed off as a "Who we are and how we got there"; this book can almost be compared to as a hybrid between a memoir and a satire that (as I interpreted it) effectively calls out the country taking the easy road to economic malfunction.
Bravo to Eggers for crafting an incredibly well-written, well-told, and compelling story that does in fact remind us that there is a sliver of hope for the country in the grand scheme of things...
-Lyf-
tayloreb's review against another edition
4.0
Not anywhere near what I expected-- but that's not necessarily a bad thing. First of all, Dave Eggers is my all time favorite author, so I may overrate this. But. I have never read a book in such concrete character voice.
bsedrish's review against another edition
2.0
Hard to believe this is a Dave Eggers book--very unlike him.
stevienlcf's review against another edition
4.0
Dave Eggar’s latest is about a middle-aged American male, Alan Clay, who is seeking a financial and emotional comeback in Saudi Arabia. Alan is a down-on-his luck “consultant” who is trying to sell IT services for a new city, King Abdullah Economic City aka KAEC (which the locals pronounce as “cake”) that King Abdullah is building from scratch on the Red Sea. The King’s ambitious project, which promises a more egalitarian community, is so far a mere sprinkling of empty buildings and a network of roads and canals, and the King hasn’t visited the stalled project for more than 18 months. Alan and his team of young techies, who dismiss Alan as some relic from the past, are parked in an un-air-conditioned plastic tent in the Jeddah desert waiting for an audience with the King (shades of "Waiting for Godot" which supplied the novel’s epigraph). Alan is left with time to reflect on his failed marriage to Ruby, who was “too strong, and too smart and too cruel,” his beloved daughter Kit, who cannot return to her prestigious college because Alan lacks the resources to pay her tuition, and a nagging growth on the nape of his neck which Alan assumes is the cancer that will release him from the missteps that have lead him to the brink of bankruptcy.
Eggar uses Alan to reflect the frustrations of middle-class America – the unemployed workers who find their jobs outsourced in a global economy. Alan’s father, with whom he has a fraught relationship, was a union foreman at a StrideRite store in Massachusetts who witnessed the demise of the unions, the move of production to Kentucky and, five years later, to China. Alan himself started his sales career with Fuller Brush and then moved up the corporate ladder at Schwinn “until he and others decided to have other people, 10,000 miles away, build the things they sold, and soon left themselves with nothing to sell.” Alan doesn’t understand that he made himself unnecessary and irrelevant (instead, in a hysterical riff, he blames many of his problems on Banana Republic for killing his credit and his ability to finance his plan to manufacture premium bicycles in the U.S.A.).
This is a comic, but deeply affecting, tale of one man’s travails against the backdrop of our times. It is replete with timely and provocative themes and fully realized characters.
Eggar uses Alan to reflect the frustrations of middle-class America – the unemployed workers who find their jobs outsourced in a global economy. Alan’s father, with whom he has a fraught relationship, was a union foreman at a StrideRite store in Massachusetts who witnessed the demise of the unions, the move of production to Kentucky and, five years later, to China. Alan himself started his sales career with Fuller Brush and then moved up the corporate ladder at Schwinn “until he and others decided to have other people, 10,000 miles away, build the things they sold, and soon left themselves with nothing to sell.” Alan doesn’t understand that he made himself unnecessary and irrelevant (instead, in a hysterical riff, he blames many of his problems on Banana Republic for killing his credit and his ability to finance his plan to manufacture premium bicycles in the U.S.A.).
This is a comic, but deeply affecting, tale of one man’s travails against the backdrop of our times. It is replete with timely and provocative themes and fully realized characters.