Rating: 
Summary: Accessible, funny, topical, and sad.
Review: Is it any wonder that a book about a young social climber in New York, employed by a magazine suspiciously like The New Yorker (where the author once worked) would be panned by people living in Portland? This is the book that put McInerney on the map, and it serves as the blueprint for a certain brand of contemporary fiction. Without this book there would be no Brett Easton Ellis, Jonathan Ames, or David Foster Wallace. Still entertaining after 15 years, it's important because it changed modern fiction. McInerney may not write sprawling epics like John Irving, but it doesn't make him any less important.
Rating: 
Summary: "A Useless Book"
Review: This is one of the most abominable books I've ever had to read. What makes the author think a reader would be interested in the woes of a milksop's life? The protagonist is a weakling and his story is dull. The hell with this book; I've read better comic books.
Rating:
Summary: Fluff
Review: "Bright Lights, Big City" is notable only for its second-person narrative, a device that would have been interesting in the hands of a more skilled author; with McInerney, however, it comes off as little more than a cute trick. This book somehow manages the feat of reflecting the shallowness of 80s yuppie culture without offering a single perceptive observation about it. Indeed, this may be the only book ever written specifically for shallow yuppies who have never read a book and will never read another one. The main character's "rebirth" at the end is trite beyond belief. (He walks past a bakery and smells bread. It smells "wholesome," so he trades in a yuppie status symbol for a loaf and eats it, thus saving his soul. Get it?) The great modern American novel about a young man at war with himself in the Big City remains "The Catcher in the Rye." This book isn't a tenth of Salinger's masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Hands down the most pretentious book ever written
Review: It takes about 30 seconds to stop being impressed by the second person narrative perspective, and it's all downhill from there. Whining silliness! They should make McInerney write, "I will not be a punk," 500 times on the chalkboard. I want to know why I even had to give this one star; there should be negative ratings.
Rating: 
Summary: Dude!
Review: All contemporary American literature comes from one book by Jay McInerney called Bright Lights, Big City. It is as accurate to the rules of reality as something can get. This generation stuff is crap and this book captures the energy of young people in the 80's, the 90's or any other desperate age. It is hep without being annoying, funny, sad, and each word is placed like a gold filling. The scene where the narrator and Tad's cousin walk through the Village is more fetching than Winona Ryder. The end returns to the beginning and the smell of bread is the smell of loss. The Algonquin braves bring you to the Dutch settlers of The Great Gatsby, which is a book one day after some perspective it will be compared to. The third person telling (you) at first takes a little getting used to, and parts of the book, particuarly some of the scenes at the end, are a little bit too New Yorker, Raymond Carver, Columbia University between 53rd and 59th. But other than that, there's many ways to be wicked, though YOU don't know one little thing about love
Rating:
Summary: Incredible Reading!
Review: This book was fantastic. McInerney's writing is engaging and addictive. He is able to relate the story's main character directly to the reader, which serves for a poignant connection. It was, unfortunatly a quick read. Since I was so inraptured within the novel I finished in within several days. I haven't read anything as good in a long time. The irony of having the main character lose his wife to a somewhat materialistic career (modeling) just adds more to the scene of materialism and greed that was so rampant in the 1980's. The book if full of instances of the main character trying to find himself within a whirlwind of drugs and the night life. McInerney's writing almost has a J.D. Salingeresque tone to it, and the main character is somewhat strikingly similar in expression of thought as was the character of Holden Caulfield. The main character (referred to as You) could be anyone, and this is perhaps why the novel is so engaging, because one can witness theirself struggling with the same problems and addictions. As a young person myself I completely understood the experiences the character was going throughout the story, but I easily compared them to the 1990's. I recognized all the choices the character made and was awed to note that even thought the setting for the novel was the 1980's, the circumstances which the character finds himself within could take place in any time and place, making the story so entirely possible. And that's what a great book should be able to accomplish! ::Sigh:: it was WONDERFUL!
Rating:
Summary: Veramente allagashiano
Review: I really loved this book. It's not easy for a B.E.E. fan to rate four star a book from an other so called minimalist author, but i found the novel really awsome and funny: the plot is equilibrated and the characters well shaped.Much, much better than "Brightness falls".
Rating:
Summary: A powerful portrayal of the 80's lost generation.
Review: Similar to THE SUN ALSO RISES, McInerney draws readers into the lost generation of the 1980's when people were measured by money and material success. Tad Allagash is the definition of this shallowness as he leads Marty (you) through a life that promises non-stop thrills and gives little attention to the true responsibilities that must be addressed. But Marty is a victim of this generation. He doesn't fit with the stereotype of upward mobility. He is a simple man with simple tastes. He is a man struggling to discover his best self. He wants to find love again but can not if he can not discover himself. McInerney does a superb job of attaching readers to his characters. One way this is done is through the second person narrative that implies that the events of the novel could happen to anyone. A resemblance is cast between Marty and Salinger's Holden Caulfield because despite his sufferage, Marty refuses to acknowledge it. McInerney's ability to take us through the rock bottom soul searching that Marty does to resolve his conflicts is brutally descriptive and does exceptionally well to blur the class distinction of addiction being something that happens to poor people or criminals. Bright Lights shows how low a man is willing to fall before he realizes that he possesses the courage to continue. McInerney displays Marty's courage best at the end of the novel when he writes the brilliant scene, wrought with images, of Marty watching the man load the bread truck near the bakery. The aroma of the freshly baked rolls calls out to Marty's simplistic side and provides him with the reassurance that there is good still in the world, he just needs to rediscover it. So, he exchanges his sunglasses, all he has left, for a sack of rolls. Giving up the sunglasses, his shield or mask of his addiction, leads readers to understand that Marty is going to stop tailspinning and is going to rebuild his life one day at a time. This ending with the sun rising in the east is a direct contrast to the desperation felt in the opening scene at the after hours night club. This contrast allows us to see Marty's full journey. At times, the novel is darkly comic and cynical, yet it ends with a note of promise. It does an especially nice job analyzing the attitudes of the 80's. Not all people were mesmerized by the lure of the all mighty dollar, but those people had difficulty finding self-worth and satisfaction in light of their own personal struggles of family, self, and most of all love. McInerney synthesizes these struggles into the character of Marty and casts him against Tad, his alter ego, the poster child of peer pressure. The book is a good read that leaves you thinking about your own ambitions and feelings of loss. The ending is uplifting but it is realistic in that it implies nothing is solved immediately and that all good resolutions take some sacrifice and time.
Rating:
Summary: Now I Like Yuppies.
Review: The funniest book I've read since DeLillo's White Noise, Bright Lights Big City made my week. McInerny may be talking about the eighties, but he impressively manages to tackle dated subjects with fresh humor and style. However, the jokes don't keep the story unemotional. The nameless lead character starts out cold and distant, but by the end of the book I felt as though I was him. "Vicky" may insist that one person cannot truly know what it is like to be another person, but McInerny brings us so close to his hero that he allows his readers to accomplish this feat. As for the style of the book-- just as I was getting annoyed with the use of the second-person narrative I began to love it; the text reaches out to us and becomes personal and immediate by the end of the first chapter. "You" is the most human character I've come across since Holden back in high school. I can't wait to read more by this talented writer. Sad, sensitive, and hopeful, grave and hilarious, Bright Lights Big City is proof that underneath the suits, sarcasm, and drugs, yuppies are people too.
Rating:
Summary: It tests the strength of your soul and then touches it
Review: The story of one single event reshaping a person's beliefs about himself and the world around him is not an uncommon theme in literature. "Bright Lights, Big City" is such a story, written with originality and excitement. The book makes us question what we believe. And it makes us wonder how strong and durable these beliefs really are when faced with tragedy. From the very first page, we are active members of the story. McInerney writes in the second person so that we do not feel distanced from the main character. And in fact we never learn of the main character's name. The reader is the main character! That makes the reader a coke addict! But we should not be so quick to judge. As I stated earlier, this book puts good intentions and high moral standards on the line when matched with tragedy. Let the reader beware if he or she thinks such a fate is not possible. What would it take for you to sniff Brazilian Marching Powder? This book asks such a question. If you find an answer to the question, do not despair. Read this book for help and hope.
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