Bright Lights, Big City

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Summary: Bright Lights, Big City-from a 15 year old
Review: In my English II honors course that I am currently taking part in, we hold monthly book clubs. My group chose McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City. I loved the second person narrative. This book, was hard for us to relate to. It was, however, insightful and I enjoyed being in the place of the character. It entangles you in every emotion and leaves you satisfied at its closure. It is a book that you should read at least once in your life!

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Summary: The Catcher in the Rye of the MBA set
Review: I loved this book.

In fact last year after reading it ... I read the entire library I could find of Jay McIrney ... now I can understand some people not liking its narrative style ... but if thats the case dont buy it in the first place.

If you like interesting writing about the over-educated and under-employed with prestige jobs that pay no money read this book.

It gives you a idea that although glamorous ... life is not easy as a twentysomething in the big city.

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Summary: so entertaining!
Review: I found this book to be so entertaining. I love how the author used a second person narrative. It helped you to be more involved in the story. I have to read seven books this semester and this is the first one that I actaually finished before the due date.

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Summary: A masterpiece of our time
Review: Bright Lights, Big City is timeless book that will be remembered for generations to come as Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" and Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." McInerney uses the second person narrative to put one in the shoes of the protagonist and does a superb job doing so. This work is pure art. Some call this book a guiltly pleasure but I beg to differ. The wit and irony in this book are paralelled by few authors such as Flannery O' Connor. The book is art. The symbolism is subtle and not shoved down the reader' throat. It is one of the greatest novels of our time. It is soon to be one of the books that high school students learn in English class if there are not teachers who do it already. People not from New York seem to be anti-BLBC but this book could have taken place anywhere. A must read for it's style, wit, and,realism. This book not only teaches, but entertains.

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Summary: Bright Lights Big City
Review: I really enjoy this book. The author captures a life out of control

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Summary: LOW LIGHTS,DEAD CITY :NOTHING IN THIS DAMN BOOK IS PRETTY
Review: A man named Jay McInerney wrote Bright Light, Big City. The book is about 200 pages long. It is about a young man that moves to New York With a great life and pretty much as soon as he gets to New York his life goes down hill. It seems that the best thing to happen to him since he got there was meeting his wife thew model who leaves him when he talkes her on a vacation to Europe. But when he decides to leave , his wife says that she is leaving him and she stays in Europe. Personally i think that the book has its good and bad parts, but the book overall is not good in my opinion. But as i said before , it has its good and bad parts. The yuoug man's life is just stripped away from him as soon as he gets to New york. and he paid for being there by having turned to drugs for redemption but in the real deal , he was just pushing himself deeper into the darkness. To tell the truth , i wouldn't recomend thius book to anyone. it's just a book that tries to get to your heart by making you feel sympothy for the main character. that's why i think this book is not good and why it got one star from me.

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Summary: Terrible Book
Review: The book Bright Lights Big City was written by Jay McInerney in the early 1980's. The book tells the story of a young man living in New York who uses drugs in order to forget all the troubles he has had in life. The book is very short, almost 200 pages long, and for the story it tells, is more than enough. The book is badly written since the beginning, and it is not interesting at all. The book seemed to be good at the start, but as you continue reading it, it becomes terrible. The book suffers a decay from good to terrible since the beginning to its end. The main character is a young man who has suffered the loss of his mother and his wife, and the only way he sees to get out of the troubles is to use cocaine. The main character has no name, so the author is saying that this problem could apply to anyone who has lost their parents and is a drug addict. The book is written in second person, so the author wants the reader to identify with the main character, which I find very amusing because no one in a sane state in mind would identify themselves with a character with such characteristics. The main character lives in a fantasy world where he tells all the people that his wife is on a trip, but she really left him. He works at an important newspaper when the book begins, but with al his problems with drugs, he gets fired. The book has no central theme, the only idea that could be concluded is that the whole book tries to tell the story about a young man who uses drugs to forget about his problems with relationships and work. As the book progresses, the quality decreases from good to terrible. The book is very short, because if it would be longer, it would be a waste of time to finish reading it. The central theme of the book is not clear, the only thing that can concluded is that the author is telling the story of a young man who uses drugs to forget about all the problems he has in his messed up life. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, but if someone needs to read it for school, read it fast and get over it, because if you read it slowly, you'll want to throw away.

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Summary: Love it for what it is.
Review: The whole point of the protagonist is that he's *not* to be liked, and is, in fact, everything vile: he's shallow, he's weak; he squanders his money, talent and love for coke. I've never felt anything but pity toward him, in all the many times I have read and reread this story of a young NYC maghead (which, aside from the drug habit, I am). McInerney writes the best second-person narrative I've found, and the fact that the slim paperback is the perfect size for subway reading doesn't hurt, either. Along with "The Bell Jar," this is my favorite young-mentally-imbalanced-person-moves-to-NYC-to-join-a-famous-magazine-and-loses-everything novel.

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Summary: Intensely annoying, pretentious tripe
Review: You are intrigued by the second-person perspective for a chapter or so, but then, there are still many chapters to come. There are not excessively many of those chapters, which rates among the precious few good things to be said about this book. You quickly get to the point where you have to admit that you have, in fact, read more annoying books than "Bright Lights, Big City" ... albeit, mercifully, not very often.

So much for the facts, now to find out just what it is that makes you feel this way. The book attempts to ingratiate itself to you and to make you sympathize with the protagonist. But why should you? If anything, you sympathize with his supermodel bimbo wife. She would have required an angel's patience in addition to her angelic physique to stick with this loser. Not that his failings automatically make for a bad story, many great novels are about losers. But this one is so patently trying to make more of its hero than you or anyone else can conceivably see in him, even when cutting him some generous slack. This also goes for his oh-so-cool sidekick Allagash. Why McInerney is so visibly proud of this character, yet fails to develop it in any credible way, is anyone's guess, and definitely one at which you balked.

As for the plot, the only surprising twist to its utter predictability is that his employer's highly commendable decision to fire him took so long.

So that leaves you with the language, the elaborate facade of studied suaveness and supposedly with-it lingo behind which can be found .... well, nothing, really.

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Summary: This is a terrible book, no matter where you live.
Review: I must take issue with "A Reader" from NYC, who attacks the negative review from Tom in Portland by insinuating that one must live in New York to understand the greatness of "Bright Lights, Big City." I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and remain in love with New York after several years. None of this has anything to do with "Bright Lights, Big City," which is a shallow work of pseudo-literature. Tom got it right -- the book is a piece of fluff that will not be remembered. "Reader" may consider himself/herself to be a "hip" New Yorker, but he/she is not a serious reader of fiction. (By the way, I've been to Portland, and it's a cool city -- many transplanted New Yorkers live there.)