Rating: 
Summary: More exciting than enlightening
Review: Shutterbabe is a quick and easy read. The prose is light and crisp--just right for those marathon sessions when you want to burn through a book in a day and a half. With considerable doses of bullets, blood and sex, 'Shutterbabe' is more exciting than enlightening. A page turner as Kogan relives her fast-paced life as a globe-trotting photojournalist and recommended for 20-somethings struggling to make the right early-career choices.
Rating: 
Summary: Pointless posturing...
Review: I'm not sure what audience this book was aimed at; I never figured out where it was trying to go.
I could sum the whole thing up like this:
Through very bad judgement, promiscuous white-bread chick gets into hairy situations as a photojournalist, and into stupid situations with men.
Then she writes a whiny book about it.
The End.
Seriously; if you pick up an autobiography, the author owes it to the reader to have something interesting to say. Or so I thought. In this case the writer, Deborah Copaken Kogan, seems to have mistaken what might interest her girl friends with what would interest the general public. This book is like College Writing 101. Sleeping with lame guys and getting into a handful of dangerous situations doesn't make for interesting reading. The sad thing is that every potentially interesting topic gets sidetracked to make her look like the victim and/or 'cool' . For example, if you follow a bunch of Mujahedeen around in Afghanistan, I think the average reader would want a little more historical and cultural background on that conflict and less "Please feel sorry for me; I haven't bathed in a month and I'm out of tampons". Her "It's-all-about-me" american tourist worldview get's really boring really quick.
As for the art of photojournalism; don't expect to learn more about photography than you would taking a class at the local community college (Leica's are expensive? Really?)
And the sleeping around? I, as a male reader, could care less who a woman sleeps with, but jumping in the sack with obvious A-holes and then expecting sympathy from the reader when she finally wises up is pathetic. Trying to portray this as somehow 'liberated' or 'feminist' is so White Suburban it's laughable.
The one thing that could have done a lot to save this book is MORE PHOTOGRAPHS. Even in the hardcover, there's just small, b/w images.
I liked the 'idea' of this book, but I think it just failed on all counts because the subject herself is so uninteresting.
Rating: 
Summary: so short of its potential
Review: This novel is exciting and fast-paced. As you sit in a chair reading of her adventures, you become all too aware that you *are* simply sitting in a chair and where the heck has your life gone??? While her lifestyle is traumatic, romantic, and enthralling on the page, her writing is not. She will not be winning any awards for her prose. Also, her views in the afterward in regards to 9/11 were unnecessary. As a photojournalist, I think it would have been more poignant to have a collection of photos in the back, not pointless words. I did enjoy the time I spent reading the novel though, and the only thing I regret is not having the spunk this woman has to conquer the world, or at least my own inhibitions on men and living life.
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