Rating: 
Summary: Manipulated.
Review: Four stars for cleverness and fun. Two stars for not being able to close a story. Notice I'm not saying,"Resolve." Kidd is clever, entertaining, and offers wonderful--often hilarious, justifiable insights in to the demimonde of Art and the creatures to be found therein. Yet with the closing chapter, possibly two, Kidd becomes facile and employs a preposterous "deus ex machina" which more than anything suggests weariness with the story and/or an inability to end a thing which has moved beyond his ability to control/complete. I was entranced right up to the last two chapters and then felt Kidd reneged on all those high sounding principles he earlier expounded.
Rating: 
Summary: Buy It Now
Review: You have to hold the hardcover version of this book in your hands to truly appreciate it. Little delights are everywhere. Thank you messages run around the cover's edge. Hidden slogans lurk in plain view. Even the normally-boilerplate copyright statement seduces the eye. The fact that the enclosed story proves every bit as diverting is almost a bonus.
Rating:
Summary: Remembrances of Design School
Review: The Cheese Monkeys, by Chip Kidd, is a funny, irreverant, fast moving look at the first year of art major Happy. I laughed out loud in spots and cringed forcefully as well at various scenarios because they took me back to my own experiences in Art School. The scenarios are over the top, but if you have ever studied art, drawing and/or design, you will recognize these faculty and the situations Happy and his classmate friends are in. This is a must read for anyone who ever went to art school or for anyone who calls themselves a designer. There are nice references and situations about college life in general, but the meat of the book is about the two classes - Drawing in the first semester and Intro to Graphic Design in the second semester. The second half of the book is much better than the first in terms of it's pacing and the situations. I totally bought the character of professor William Sorbeck - I had a design professor like him - and thought this character and the over the top drama is very much how you might remember an effective or scary teacher who molds your whole perspective on design and personal ego.
The presentation of the book - typeface, interludes and intros to each chapter are equally as effective in moving the story forward as the narrative is. This is a terrific novel and it is great to see the subject matter treated in such a light, yet effective way.
Rating: 
Summary: Monkey See, Monkey Do
Review: Snappy, smart story written in a breezy manner.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read
Review: The Cheese Monkeys is a rare kind of novel--completely off the wall, yet completely accessible, completely readable. It's the story of a freshman at a huge state college who decides to major in art because he knows it will be mishandled in some mediocre way and for his first semester, it is. He takes drawing from a woman whose artistic expertise and tastes even this 18 year old disdains. The class, however, still has its merits. He manages to befriend two diametrically opposed women who take his second semester art class--commercial (or maybe its graphic) arts. The professor is borderline insane, as are many of the assignments. Kidd does an excellent job of evoking the weirdness and the fun of college. The ending of the novel is a little bizarre, and Kidd does manage to fill the book with much of what appears to be his own philosophy of art (its not forced, which is refreshing). The novel is funny and clever and I really enjoyed it. Well done.
Rating:
Summary: Both pretty *and* entertaining--what more could you want?
Review: When I got to page 98, I almost died: the TYPEFACE changes! How many authors are brave enough to mess with the typeface of a book? That's what I liked most about Kidd: while the novel itself is good, the book design is amazing. He prints text on every available edge; the title page text runs horizontally across several pages; the dust jacket only slides over the front cover. It's nice to see an author eschew traditional book design in favor of something a little more...(...), for lack of a better word. I wish more authors took as strong an interest in the physical appearance of their work as Kidd does--and I wish more publishers would let them.As far as the story is concerned, I appreciated the way in which Kidd took the stereotypical art critic pretensions and turned them on their heads, pitting one egoistic protagonist against another until you realize it all comes down to absolute relativism (or so I concluded). The running commentary on commercial--excuse me, *grapic*--design was especially educational. But the ending was too obscure to merit a five-star rating from this reviewer. If anyone understood what the heck was going on, please let me know.
Rating:
Summary: The cheese monkeys will get you if you don¿t watch out.
Review: Though Chip Kidd is best known as a "graphic designer" for book covers (as opposed to "commercial artist," a distinction he makes in the book), his talent as a writer could propel him into a whole new field--and this book into cult icon status. With a clarity of vision perhaps brought on by hindsight, he lays bare the emotional and intellectual confusion of a naïve, first year art student at a state university, a character who must find himself in an atmosphere which requires him to evaluate all the ideas and values he's uncritically absorbed to date. The character, who feels autobiographical, is lively, funny, and, I thought, totally believable, and I suspect that any reader who has ever taken an art course will empathize, if not identify, with him in some way. As the speaker lives through this "novel in two semesters," he is profoundly affected by an off-the-wall female upperclassman, Himillsy Dodd, a free-spirited, hard-drinking woman of strong opinions, willing to challenge everyone and everything. Opposing hypocrisy wherever she finds it (virtually everywhere), Himillsy serves as a quirky mentor during the speaker's first two art classes, the second of which is with Winter Sorbeck, a never-to-be-forgotten instructor who turns his students' thinking inside-out, viciously critiquing not only of their work but also their personalities. As "Happy" deals with Sorbeck, Himillsy, the usual freshman tensions, fraternity parties, exams, critiques, and all-nighters, the reader shares his anxieties and feels his growth. The amusing cover of the book resembles a doodled-on freshman text, with a magic marker message written on the binding and side of the closed book, bleeding into the pages themselves. The title, taken from one of Himillsy's sculptures, is as goofy as she is, though its meaning becomes clearer as the book progresses. The ending is a letdown, however, and it feels as if the book got away from the author, who then had to take extreme action to resolve his subplots and themes. Still, it is an auspicious debut, special fun for anyone interested in art.
Rating:
Summary: Chip Kidd will amaze you.
Review: Chip Kidd does a excellent job with his first novel. It is a story that will keep you interested from the start. He shows the era of the novel like he actually lived through them, and you can't help but enjoy all his charicters. Anyone who was or is disaponted by this novel needs to have their head examined.
Rating:
Summary: 85% of a really good book
Review: Someone needs to do a study of Needlessly Apocalyptic Endings in Modern Fiction. Most of this book is great fun; hip and funny, and also a Work of Ideas, all about art and love and design and integrity and stuff. Then (somewhere around the Frat Party scene) Kidd seems to have realized it was about time for the ending, and reached for the explosives. The last two chapters seem to be mostly a hallucinatory dream induced by lack of sleep (the protagonist's, that is, although I could believe it of Kidd also). Which is very nice and modern and all, but I'd rather know what *happened*. Unless I'm overly dense, Kidd is violating his own quite plausible design rule: when designing an object of whatever kind, it's more important that it accomplish the purpose than that it look clever. But anyway! It's a good book, and do read it. It won't take all that long; it's a pretty wild and energetic ride. And maybe the ending that was silly and opaque to me will be lucid and relevatory to you. You Never Know.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Cover, Insides So-so
Review: The first half of the book is tedious. The third quarter is interesting: it contains the design exercises assigned by instructor W. Sorbeck and the students' solutions. Sorbeck is a provocative character. The ending is left me thinking, "What's the big deal? Why is this book getting attention?"
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