Reviews - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

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A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

I only read half this book before I was put off by the author's narcissism. Supposedly this is a memoir about a family's coping with the death of both parents, but the author's relatives didn't come through as defined characters. This book is mainly, "Blah, blah, blah, this is what *I* was feeling..."

machelriller's review against another edition

2.0

I feel kind of bad marking this books as Read because I have 80 pages left and can't bring myself to care enough about them to sit down and read them. UGH. I really wanted to like this book but every time I picked it up it grated on my nerves.

dphilton's review against another edition

2.0

I'm a big fan of Dave Eggers. What is the What is a masterpiece. The Circle was weirdly fascinating and so different. Actually, that's all I've read. Until now.

I've been meaning to get around to Egger's memoir, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" for years, ever since my brilliant wife tore through it during a lake house vacation week. She loved it. Me, not so much.

Eggers uses his own voice to explain how he parents died in rapid succession, how he wasn't ready for responsibility, and how he and his sister did a pretty crappy job raising his younger brother who was like 11 at the time. I've heard some people say that this Eggers book is written in the style of David Foster Wallace, whose supposedly brilliant magnum opus not one can actually finish (well, me, anyway). There's something to that. Like Wallace, sparse and spare are not words he seems familiar with. This strikes me as stream of consciousness, something I'm guilty of myself. But, it feels like a forced stream. It's a tiny bit too precious, like he's worked to hard to resist editing and shaping his truth into something of real coherence.

Truman Capote said of Kerouac's On The Road, "That's not writing. That's typing." I think the same applies here.

martymaguire's review against another edition

4.0

I remember reading that Chuck Klosterman said that this was just a groundbreaking book for memoirs. It changed the genre completely (especially since he had the 50 page introduction).

Some parts do drag, but Eggers is a good person to come to know as a writer in the 21st century. He tells a good story and it's definitely an inspiring one.

boat_tiger's review against another edition

1.0

This book and "You Shall Know Our Velocity!" were both bestsellers. I tried them both. Neither were for me. I doubt I made it more than 100 pages between the two of them, I hated them that much.