Model Behavior

Rating:
Summary: fresh, brilliantly executed look at humankind
Review: McInerney's amazing new book, sure, visits familiar terrain: life in the fast lane. But it is textured with a sad knowledge and insight hard won by taking an unflinching look into the gears and products of the fame machine. Along the way, it takes a smart look at types we see every day and, instead of sterotyping them, lays painfully plain the exact shapes of the crosses they bear.It would be tempting to pass judgment on glossy types -- as many snipey reviewers love to do with McInerney himself. But McInerney deftly sidesteps any treatment of personas we've seen and sensitively observes celebrities as (gasp) people. His indictment of them and the id-gratifying world they (and we) inhabit is rendered with grace. No trendy irony here, no fake modesty, no gratuitous heroics. It all rings uncomfortably true, no matter whether it's about bold-face names or my next-door neighbors. McInerney is not afraid to call a spade a spade, even when it means making his own reviews a punchline. This is brilliant fiction. And I don't recall anyone saying you could only write about New York once in your career. This is an honest and beautifully funny book. I can't wait to read all of it, including the deft short stories, again.

Rating:
Summary: Worst Book Ever
Review: Never before have I read such a petty, superficial book. There is nothing redeeming in it. It blew me away that a man who wrote Bright Lights, Big City (a fantastic book) could come up with something like this. It's embarrassing.

Rating:
Summary: Easy read, interesting but not challenging.
Review: Not McInerney's best work but a worthwhile read. What really impressed me, however, were the short stories. I was pleasantly surprised. I will surely revisit these many times. I know that Bright Lights, Big City was his most noted work,however, I feel that Brightness Falls was easily his most mature work. I would also reccomend Ransom, his first book although it was published after Bright Lights...

Rating:
Summary: A reminder of the 1990s
Review: Okay, so it's "Bright Lights" rewritten for the 1990s, but it's still good - as good a reminder of life in the 1990s as Bright Lights was for the 1980s (plus ca change etc..). The book stands on its own merits, and has one of the most valuable characteristics of any book - it's a great read, and hard to put down. It's gimmicky, but also clever - very clever, in fact, to the point of extreme sublety in summing up the world of showbiz, glitter and what passes for criticism. There are no facts - only gossip, public relations and cliched reviews and comments. Jay McInerney should come back every decade and rewrite this book.

Rating:
Summary: so-so
Review: The actual novel wasn't bad, and I liked the main character. However, once I finished the novel and started the short stories, I lost all interest in reading whatsoever. I think he should have just stuck with the novel and left it as that

Rating:
Summary: Prince of the Pastry Cart
Review: There's no denying McInerney's talent for glibly flowing prose, and a facility for lip-curling one-liners...and yet...I can't help feeling the slightness of all this. Kidding the linked worlds of fashion, Hollywood and celebrity glamour is just too easy a task, not to mention the author's helpless adoration of what he pretends to lampoon. McInerney's tales from the land of gloss, far from rocking the boat, actually exist to convey his own insider's status. I always hoped JM would develop into a substantial writer of three dimensions (which does occur in places in BRIGHTNESS FALLS) but overall he seems terminally pleased with his position as "Prince of the Pastry Cart." Then there are the forgettable magazine stories (some of them over 10 years old!) tacked on to this book to jack it up to salable length. I'm disappointed, and will re-read my copy of THE DAY OF THE LOCUST.

Rating:
Summary: Unremarkable, re-tread blah from Easton Ellis-wannabe
Review: There's nothing wrong with writing fun, 90's-style fiction, but can't anyone do better than this? If this was some nobody's first novel, and not the oh-yeah-Bright-Lights guy, it would never have been published. It's nothing but an unamusing, amateurish rip-off of American Psycho minus the blood and guts. Even if youre tempted, starved for good current fiction, please, at least wait for the paperback -- to show up at a used book store. You'll thank me later. Oh, but you will get a variety of wildly implausible albeit unimaginative subplots that add nothing to the story other than momentarily distracting our shallow, bland protagonist. Quick, before any more aging one-hit wonders are encouraged by the smell of a fast buck, can't some clever, with-it young or old author write a fun, topical literary novel? I think we're clear on who can't.

Rating:
Summary: well written
Review: This book is the only one I own by Mcinerney. It's some of the most well written prose I have experienced. The lack of action is over won by it's sofisticated stile and besides the characters are some you can't help liking - especialy Jeramy and Brooke with their extreme personalities. I think Jeramy some how is a mutilated version of the auther.

Rating:
Summary: Lazy, pathetic, annoying, and shallow
Review: This book was a great disappointment in every way. The highlight was the discussion of nematodes in Florida. A complete waste of time!

Rating:
Summary: poor man's brent easton ellis
Review: this book was okay. i had to read it when i was trapped in a hostage situation in a bank and so i mean i didn't really identify with the main character because i mean who wants to read about a loser whose girlfriend just left him really? but since i didn't have anything else to do - you feel his pain, it definately brought back some of the teenage heartache feelings which was fun to revisit but otherwise the book was just more of the new york city, postmodernish, rich people who don't have any money, xanax loving embracing their bourgeouis decadent problems but this guy still writes about diaphrams and just for kicks i asked my pseudo-girlgriend if she wanted to use a diaphram and she didn't even know what it was.