Rating: 
Summary: First effort
Review: Chabon's first effort is not bad. Precious like most first novels, auto-biographical in large chunks one assumes, superb on multiplicities of sexualities. Finely written and, barring the dubious gangster plot, well worth your attention. Then move to "Kavalier and Clay" and be expanded!
Jason R.
Terrible cover design, by the way.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but needs another reading
Review: I will admit that I view Michael Chabon with some respect. I have read Kavalier & Clay twice and have read both his short story collections. I also just finished his upcoming novel, "Summerland." Therefore, I was slightly disappointed when I finished TMOP. Not that it wasn't good. It is just that I have read his later works, which I can say have put him near the top of the current author crop, and TMOP shows Chabon's youth and inexperience.While the characters are interesting and developed, they still carry many stereotypes. I also found myself uninterested in the outcome of the book. I didn't really care what happened to anyone. This is not something that happens in his later books. Anyway, it is a good book and I hope it will work itself into my personal favorites someday. If not, at least one of his novels (Kavalier & Clay) will always be on my bookshelf. Recommended
Rating: 
Summary: A freshman work.
Review: Suffice it to say, Mr. Chabon became a more disciplined, focused, and skilled writer with practice and age. Much like hearing a demo of a great song, one can hear evidence of the greatness in the demo, but the demo itself doesn't stand alone. The same can be said with this book. In the Chabon canon, people will look at this years from now and see the techniques and styles being practiced in The Mysteries of Pittsburgh that made Chabon what he is. Then they will go on to read his works of polish and quality.
Rating: 
Summary: One of my all time favorites
Review: I think the "literary critics" have beaten this book to death. Let me just say that I found the story to be as entertaining as the charaters were loveable. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Chabon puts sentences together quite nicely.
Rating:
Summary: The most enjoyable read I've ever experienced
Review: I know it wasn't Michael Chabon's intention to seduce only me when he penned "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" - but this book taught me the sheer bliss of falling in love with an author.
It is hard to say what makes TMOP such a wonderful work - the stylized use of prose, the interplay of angst and exhileration, the inception, and then (supposed) resolution of internal conflicts, or characters who lives play out like a croquet match set to vintage Motown music.
The easy way to explain what this book is about is to call it "Catcherintherye-esque", which is insulting to both Chabon and Salinger. Sure it is a coming-of-age story, albeit one with gangsters and fops, <0-type partying, cycles and smokestacks. Then you get to Chapter 2 and become really confused. But confusion is okay, because this classic bildungsroman has, at its true core, a lot of love and concern for Art (the central character), Arthur and Phlox (rivals who would be friends at a party other than this one), and the other wonderfully drawn people that populate the book.
I re-read this book every 6 months and it never fails to leave me blissful (which is surprising, because much of the story is a downer).
Michael's other books (Kavalier and Klay, Wonder Boys) are also marvels, but "Pittsburgh" is the one that repeatedly stirs me. While I realize it means a hit to his wallet, I hope this book never makes it to celluloid. This book is so appealing to the imaginiation that any vision but the reader's own would do disservice to Art's (or is it really Michael Chabon's) world.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as the hype-but not that bad, either.
Review: Everybody has to start somewhere, and Michael Chabon, who has developed into a first class author, started out with Mysteries of Pittsburgh. A first novel by a very young author, this book was highly acclaimed at it's release, winning several major awards, and generating accolades to Chabon that compared him to the likes of J. D. Salinger, Mark Twain and so on. All the hype and awards might seem a bit much in retrospect, as this is not a world class novel either in terms of the writing or the concept. However, it is probably best to remember the time in which it was released-1988-and if you look at the book in the context of those times. That was a time when the fear arising from the confusion and ignorance and politicizing of AIDS were at their height, and the literati no doubt latched onto this honest and angst filled appraisal of the road to personal understanding of alternative sexuality as much for the social vales of the text as much as-if not more than-for it's intrinsic artistic value. It's not a bad book, but the craftsmanship with words, style and execution pale compared to some of Chabon's later work. That being said, there are nevertheless long sections where the emerging talent is very much on display and the reading quite enjoyable. I found many of the characters other than Art to be a bit too stereotypish but, then again, this is a first novel and that's not an altogether phenomenon for the first time author. In the end I was glad I read the book. It did lead me on to other Cahbon works, and that has proven to be a very pleasant journey. My guess is that if you approach this with the expectation you are reading a first effort and don't get too bogged down in the hype and overheated reviews on both sides, you'll end up glad you gave it a go as well.
Rating:
Summary: A novel of believable originality
Review: It's been a week since I finished "Mysteries of Pittsburgh" and I still want to hang out with the main characters. Chabon's debut novel is a masterpiece of character driven fiction. The story takes place over the course of one summer and oh how I didn't want that summer to end. Art, Arthur (yes, Chabon was brave enough to have two characters with the same name), Phlox and others are at once original and familiar. The novel succeeds precisely because of its believable originality. Nothing stretches credulity but nothing is predictable. "Mysteries of Pittsburgh" centers around Art, son of a gangster, a 20 something recent college graduate who falls in love with two people as he falls in with a new group of friends. The shifting sexual desires, the friendships, the family relations of the young men and women make for a thoroughly entertaining read.
Rating: 
Summary: Counting Backwards
Review: I can't decide whether my reading this AFTER "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" is a good thing or a bad thing. Let me explain. I read Chabon's book of short stories a couple of years ago ("Werewolves in their Youth"), and it was alright but it didn't inspire me to read more. It took the advice of a friend to pick up "...Kavalier and Clay" and I'm glad I did because that book was head and shoulders above most everything else I read last year. It was so good that it sent me (counting backwards) to "Mysteries of Pittsburgh." "Mysteries of Pittsburgh" is horrible. It is a horrible book. Why is it a horrible book? It is a horrible book because - if you looked up "first novel, problems therein" in a dictionary THERE WOULD BE A PICTURE OF THIS BOOK. Michael Chabon should not have called this book "Mysteries of Pittsburgh." He should have called it "I want to write "The Great Gatsby" only F Scott Fitzgerald beat me to it." There is a guy called Art whose father is a gangster. Art befriends a gay guy (also called Arthur) and falls in love with a girl called Phlox (who is straight out of "The Breakfast Club"). He has a kind of affair with each of them. There is also a guy called Cleveland who is a rich guy on a fast track to trouble (I'm speaking in cliches because - hell, when the material demands cliches, you've gotta go with it). If I had read "Mysteries of Pittsburgh" first, I would never have picked up another book by Michael Chabon again (even if the world went crazy over a book by him, I would avoid it). As it is, it seems to me that Michael Chabon sold his soul to the devil. The man is the authorial equivalent of Robert Johnson. That is the only way I can imagine that the author responsible for "...Kavalier and Clay" is also responsible for this piece of appalling self-conscious tripe.
Rating:
Summary: Mysteries Revealed
Review: This is the first book by Michael Chabon and in many ways it addresses some of the themes covered in some of his later works. The perfect time to read this book is following the end of one's formal education and the beginning of life in "the real world" since this is the basic outline of the plot. However, this is not just a coming of age book, it is a coming of experience book, filled with unforgettable characters and situations. What is particularly pleasing is that Chabon's later work has fulfilled much of the promise indicated by this novel. In many ways the themes explored herein are more fully developed in some of the later the work of the more mature writer.
Rating:
Summary: Immature and Unrealistic Book
Review: There might be a minority of gays in the Republican Party, but there is definitely an overrepresentation in contemporary literature, and intellectual elitists call these works avant-garde, like Guide by Dennis Cooper and Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis, which paint the impression that privileged young men are always unsure about their sexuality and smoke pot and have one night stands with men. Michael Chabon is a much better writer than the other two, but he also shroud his characters in the same inaccurate light. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is a very fragmentary and immature piece of work about a college student named Art having bisexual trysts. The characters are very stereotypical, and seemed to be put together by super glue. This Side of Paradise and The Catcher in the Rye it is definitely not. If you really have to be immersed in cultural cliches and unrealistic narrative, read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. At least you can learn some new words.
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