Helpful Score: 7
A book of disjointed stories that have characters that are interwoven, but I just didn't understand the lack of chronology. We went from present to past to future and I just couldn't handle the ride.
My other main complaint lies in how the chapters were ordered and presented. With a lack of chronology, with each chapter it took me a moment to find out where we were in the years - it made things hard. The other point that I found extremely hard to read was not knowing who the heck the chapter was about until I was at least 6 pages in and then there would be about 14 more pages, where I would get hooked and then the chapter would be over, wasn't a fan.
I say all these things because this was a read for book club and after attending, I appreciated when other people enjoyed it while I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. If I reread this book, I would put it in the pile.
My other main complaint lies in how the chapters were ordered and presented. With a lack of chronology, with each chapter it took me a moment to find out where we were in the years - it made things hard. The other point that I found extremely hard to read was not knowing who the heck the chapter was about until I was at least 6 pages in and then there would be about 14 more pages, where I would get hooked and then the chapter would be over, wasn't a fan.
I say all these things because this was a read for book club and after attending, I appreciated when other people enjoyed it while I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. If I reread this book, I would put it in the pile.
Helpful Score: 6
This book is almost structured as a series of short stories, each chapter told from the point of view of a different character who is in some way connected with the two who are supposed to be the "main" characters, Sasha and Bennie.
The writing is great, fluid and easy to read, which I think gives you a better-than-normal sense of the characters than you would get otherwise. Some of the chapters were a lot more interesting to me than others, but I think that's probably par for the course in a book that's structured this way. I guess my biggest complaint is the final chapter, which felt very out of place with the rest of the story and seemed like a meditation on communication in the digital age that the author threw in at the end to make a bigger point or give the story some deeper significance...you can just write a good book that's a character study, you don't need to make a bigger societal point to make it a good book! It really threw me out of the story at the end and I almost felt as though I was reading a different book, which was disappointing considering the chapter before it had been probably my favorite in the entire story.
Anyway, TONS of readers love this book, and it won the Pulitzer so obviously it has some merit to it. I enjoyed the story and found the read easy and interesting until that last chapter, so even though I wouldn't put it down among my favorites I would probably recommend it even with its flaws.
The writing is great, fluid and easy to read, which I think gives you a better-than-normal sense of the characters than you would get otherwise. Some of the chapters were a lot more interesting to me than others, but I think that's probably par for the course in a book that's structured this way. I guess my biggest complaint is the final chapter, which felt very out of place with the rest of the story and seemed like a meditation on communication in the digital age that the author threw in at the end to make a bigger point or give the story some deeper significance...you can just write a good book that's a character study, you don't need to make a bigger societal point to make it a good book! It really threw me out of the story at the end and I almost felt as though I was reading a different book, which was disappointing considering the chapter before it had been probably my favorite in the entire story.
Anyway, TONS of readers love this book, and it won the Pulitzer so obviously it has some merit to it. I enjoyed the story and found the read easy and interesting until that last chapter, so even though I wouldn't put it down among my favorites I would probably recommend it even with its flaws.
Helpful Score: 5
If you are expecting this book to be a novel, forget it. Think of this book as a collection of short stories which happen to have some of the same characters in them at different points in their lives. This sounds confusing, but it is the best I can do. For example, Sasha, the main character in the first chapter is a ancillary character in the second chapter which takes place earlier in her life, and later in the book there is a chapter about college life in NYC in the 80s narrated by a friend in which she is a main character, and later a chapter about her life as a teenage runaway prior to college, and later a chapter which is a power point presentation (yes!) by her daughter, and in the final chpater, her former boss and someone who had a blind date with her realize that they both knew her. But Sasha is not the main character in this book - there are other characters which are given the same pop-up treatment from chapter to chapter. For this reason, I would compare this book to "Olive Kittredge" but without the choronological order to the chapters in that book.
In any event, it was a fascinating book. Actually I listened to it on CD which I would not recommend because it prevents you from being able to flip back to see if someone you meet in Chapter 7 is the same as the drummer you read baout in Chapter 2(in addition to which I did not think the reader was really that good). Many of the chapters are set in the music industry which created a disconnect for me since music is not very important in my life. Egan also hops around a little stylistically - sometimes first person, sometimes not, sometimes a chapter is completely satrical, while another chapter is subtle in its emotional perspective, a hero in one chapter may be a villain in another. There is really something for everyone in this book.
In any event, it was a fascinating book. Actually I listened to it on CD which I would not recommend because it prevents you from being able to flip back to see if someone you meet in Chapter 7 is the same as the drummer you read baout in Chapter 2(in addition to which I did not think the reader was really that good). Many of the chapters are set in the music industry which created a disconnect for me since music is not very important in my life. Egan also hops around a little stylistically - sometimes first person, sometimes not, sometimes a chapter is completely satrical, while another chapter is subtle in its emotional perspective, a hero in one chapter may be a villain in another. There is really something for everyone in this book.
Helpful Score: 2
This review is for the AUDIO of this book. This was the first time I had ever read, or listened to this author. I thought this audio book was a work or art. I was so impressed with the language, the story, the senses that get tickled by the brilliant way this author wrote, or should we give credit to the way the narrator recited the story.
This is a series of stories, that mainly involve Sasha, and how her life intersects with other people from the 1970s to the future of 2020, which the Author did a masterful job of inventing.
You will meet, Dolly and her daughter Lulu, Scotty, Robert,Drew, Benny and Sasha, in San Francisco, Alex a blind date who shows up much later again. They all intertwine, and they all grow up whether they want to or not.
There is a very amazing chapter with Sasha's mildly autistic kids and how music touches their world. I was blown away by the beauty of this chapter alone.
I wonder if the other works of this author is as talented or if the book read as well as they were narrated. I plan to find out.
This is a series of stories, that mainly involve Sasha, and how her life intersects with other people from the 1970s to the future of 2020, which the Author did a masterful job of inventing.
You will meet, Dolly and her daughter Lulu, Scotty, Robert,Drew, Benny and Sasha, in San Francisco, Alex a blind date who shows up much later again. They all intertwine, and they all grow up whether they want to or not.
There is a very amazing chapter with Sasha's mildly autistic kids and how music touches their world. I was blown away by the beauty of this chapter alone.
I wonder if the other works of this author is as talented or if the book read as well as they were narrated. I plan to find out.
Helpful Score: 2
This book has interesting, complex characters. Not one word is wasted. Contains smart humor.
Helpful Score: 2
This was the November pick in my online book club The Reading Cove. It wasn't my cuppa.
The first couple chapters had me interested in Sasha and Bennie, but once the story went off into Rhea and the others, it became too disjointed and pointless for me, and my interest quickly fizzled. I really didn't care about the new characters I was meeting and the blah, blah, blah nature of what they had to say. Some sections had no quotation marks for dialogue, while others did. I found this annoying.
I skimmed to part B, and finally chucked it - with regret, because I feel badly giving up on a book club read - but this just wasn't coherent enough for me. And I'm very surprised it won a Pulitzer.
The first couple chapters had me interested in Sasha and Bennie, but once the story went off into Rhea and the others, it became too disjointed and pointless for me, and my interest quickly fizzled. I really didn't care about the new characters I was meeting and the blah, blah, blah nature of what they had to say. Some sections had no quotation marks for dialogue, while others did. I found this annoying.
I skimmed to part B, and finally chucked it - with regret, because I feel badly giving up on a book club read - but this just wasn't coherent enough for me. And I'm very surprised it won a Pulitzer.
Helpful Score: 1
Very interesting plot and characters. So good Ive read more of Egan's writing.
Helpful Score: 1
This book is a little confusing in the manner in which it handles jumping between characters/ storylines/past & present. The conclusion is a bewildering guesstimate of what the characters lives will look like as well as a statement of what our futures will look like. I didn't mind visiting this tome but wouldn't want to spend too much time here!
Helpful Score: 1
I did not care for this book at all, and I am one that will read just about anything. Jumped around too much, and I found it hard to keep the characters straight. Pulitizer or no Pulitzer, I found it rather pointless.
It is easy to find online Egan's message to those who have not yet read this Pulitzer Prize winner about its structure and what she was thinking when she wrote it. It is not a linear chronological narrative and I think if you go in knowing that you will enjoy the reading experience more. It touches on so many topics that I think almost everyone will be able to find a place with which to connect - the passage of time, therapy, family relationships, the music business, satire, and the digital future.
I enjoyed it. I found the jump around in time a bit confusing, but once I figured iter out, I really enjoyed the book.
Jennifer Egan's book is, in very few words, a trip. This is not a novel that follows traditional plot progression--you should know this before you pick it up or else you'll be lost within the first 100 pages. The book is ostensibly about Bennie, a former punk rocker now managing a label, and his assistant Sasha, a troubled kleptomaniac.
Still interested? Good.
While Bennie and Sasha are doubtless the central characters of the novel, the story flows out of order and from the perspectives of a diverse ensemble cast that interacts with them, sometimes in significant ways, other times in tangential ways. The story takes you from modern day New York to the African wilderness to the punk rock era in San Francisco to a war-torn country ruled by a dictator conscious of his public image to a post-war future speculating on the next step of today's social media and technology. Very few other books will take you on as crazed and diverse a ride as this.
Jennifer Egan is a excellent author herself as well, and while the breadth of her story is wide, she keeps things moving forward with excellent prose and wonderful characterization, making everyone in the book feel unique and alive.
Highly recommended.
Still interested? Good.
While Bennie and Sasha are doubtless the central characters of the novel, the story flows out of order and from the perspectives of a diverse ensemble cast that interacts with them, sometimes in significant ways, other times in tangential ways. The story takes you from modern day New York to the African wilderness to the punk rock era in San Francisco to a war-torn country ruled by a dictator conscious of his public image to a post-war future speculating on the next step of today's social media and technology. Very few other books will take you on as crazed and diverse a ride as this.
Jennifer Egan is a excellent author herself as well, and while the breadth of her story is wide, she keeps things moving forward with excellent prose and wonderful characterization, making everyone in the book feel unique and alive.
Highly recommended.
This was the November pick in my online book club The Reading Cove. It wasn't my cuppa.
The first couple chapters had me interested in Sasha and Bennie, but once the story went off into Rhea and the others, it became too disjointed and pointless for me, and my interest quickly fizzled. I really didn't care about the new characters I was meeting and the blah, blah, blah nature of what they had to say. Some sections had no quotation marks for dialogue, while others did. I found this annoying.
I skimmed to part B, and finally chucked it - with regret, because I feel badly giving up on a book club read - but this just wasn't coherent enough for me. And I'm very surprised it won a Pulitzer.
The first couple chapters had me interested in Sasha and Bennie, but once the story went off into Rhea and the others, it became too disjointed and pointless for me, and my interest quickly fizzled. I really didn't care about the new characters I was meeting and the blah, blah, blah nature of what they had to say. Some sections had no quotation marks for dialogue, while others did. I found this annoying.
I skimmed to part B, and finally chucked it - with regret, because I feel badly giving up on a book club read - but this just wasn't coherent enough for me. And I'm very surprised it won a Pulitzer.
Wonderful, entertaining book!
SUSAN S. (susieqmillsacoustics) -
This is among the worst books I have ever read. It had interesting elements here and there, but never enough to make it worth the read. It is completely disjointed, one minute you are in the past, the next in the future. You're reading of one character, then it may be their boss's brother-in-law or a child that wasn't yet been born when you started the book. There is even an entire section of the book that consists of a child's complaints about here parents and brother and this child is not even a character in the book outside of that. There are too many good books to be read to waste time on such a ridiculous waste of rambling incoherence that someone had the audacity to label a "book".
Eh... I was not overly impressed. Story was disjointed, no real flow. I really wanted to like this and in ever gave up, reading to the end. But I feel in the end that it was a waste.
The non-chronological order these stories unfold made this book fun and interesting, and tying the relationships or the events back to other characters was like a puzzle. If you like puzzles, you will probably like this story. I found it to be a story of growing up, losing the innocence of youth and accepting the banality that daily life can bring -- along with the realization that we're not superheroes who will change the world with our superhuman ideals.
I do wish, though, that Pulitzer prize committees would value upbeat, optimistic characters who realize that, even though we do grow up, get beat up in back allies by the Goon Squad (I LOVE that term), and face down the fact that we DON'T have invisible planes or chests made of steel. Impacting characters can optimistic and happy, finding joy in the small pleasures in life.... can't they?? ....I digress.
This was a good story, and I'll probably read it a 2nd time.
I do wish, though, that Pulitzer prize committees would value upbeat, optimistic characters who realize that, even though we do grow up, get beat up in back allies by the Goon Squad (I LOVE that term), and face down the fact that we DON'T have invisible planes or chests made of steel. Impacting characters can optimistic and happy, finding joy in the small pleasures in life.... can't they?? ....I digress.
This was a good story, and I'll probably read it a 2nd time.
