A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Rating:
Summary: Breaks Your Heart Because It's So Terrible
Review: This book is nothing more than the diary of an arrogant, immature 16 year old. It's not funny, not insightful and not worth your time. Amazingly, despite Eggface's attempts to be hip and edgy, he was able to put me to sleep in about 5 pages. Sadly, the critics have mistaken his cutsey, self-important style for literary talent.

Rating:
Summary: Worth it
Review: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is worth the ride. Egger begins his initial book with an uproarious pre-face, and the book doesn't get much worse. This book follows Eggers and his brother Christopher following the death of their parents at a premature age. AHWSG is a combination of experiences, travels, and events that covered a span of a couple years. It is hilarious and thoughtful. He talks about the death of his parents the only way that he can, with exaggeration mixed in with serious truth. Get a laugh and maybe you'll learn something too.

Rating:
Summary: Neither Heartbreaking Nor a Work Even Approaching Genius
Review: This book is plain awful -- the literary equivalent of MTV's "The Real World." The exceptionally unlikable author's narcissism, excessive verbiage (were no editors available?), and ENDLESS self-pitying are supposedly justified by (1) his parents' deaths and (2) his hyper self-consciousness of his narcissism, excessive verbiage, and endless self-pitying. Sorry, but not good enough. Much of it reads like a first-draft of a writing class exercise. How this book became a critical darling is beyond my understanding. Just try to read through the preface and you'll see what I mean. And don't even get me started on the author's supposed caring for his younger brother. He's supposedly devoting his time to raising his 7 year old brother after his parents' deaths, but halfway through the book we discover that he's started a hipster magazine that requires him to spend 18-hour days at the office-loft. So many inconsistencies riddle the book on this level as well that you wonder whether anything told by Eggers is to be believed.

Rating:
Summary: How I Spent My Summer at Starbucks...
Review: I left AHWSG with mixed feelings. On the one hand, Eggers is a talented young writer who does a good job within the literary-niche of post-90s economic boom, 20-something, existential fiction. Despite his attempts with this work, however, I just couldn't shake the feeling that this is nothing more than the product of a completely self-absorbed young man, sitting in the window of Starbucks with his laptop and half-caf mochachino with a twist of lime. Contrary to what Eggers may try to have you believe, this is not text of self reflection. He sets up the potential through the historical backgrounds of his characters, and then proceeds to focus on inane pursuits like trying to get on MTV's the Real World. Pop culture savvy image-fiction or self-absorption? I tend to follow the latter. Eggers has gone on to offend me in the past couple of months with the release of his second book - a text which he is only allowing a small, hand-selected group of independent bookstores throughout the country to carry whom he deems worthy. Noble? Maybe - but the notion that he is so accomplished so as to be able to handpick his market seems kind of phony and poseur-like for somebody who desperately wanted to be only reality TV.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad if you're bored
Review: This was not a bad little book, but it was not good either nor was it pulitzer prize finalist quality. It really seems at times like Eggers was pulling a fast one on us as readers. He writes constantly about using the tragedies of his life to get what he needs and wants and it seems to me like he's done it again. This pathos laden book has forced its way into people's hearts because they feel almost guilty not liking it or at least admitting they don't like it. This is not to say this book's not without its good points, but they're like Keraouc's good points. They crop up suddenly out of self-indulgent, journalistic autobiography and then fade just as quickly. A book to read if you've got nothing else to do but if you want a true heartbreaking work of staggering genius that won't guilt you into lauding it read Anne Karinina.

Rating:
Summary: Long Title--Lots of Layers
Review: You're going to cry but read it anyway. Funny how someone's honest revealing of his own life can provide a mirror. After reading this, you will either never need a psychiatrist again or start desparately needing one. My favorite times were the author's times spent with Toph, his brother. This deserves a second read and maybe a third to uncover all the layers.

Rating:
Summary: an inspiring and entertaining book
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I read it in just a few days. It is laugh out loud funny as well as heart breakingly sad. Admittedly, the middle section is a bit slow/uneven, as the author himself acknowledges, but that is more than made up for by the quality of the rest of the book. The author's honesty about his thoughts and emotions is astonishing and powerful. I highly recommend this book. Several of my friends and family members will be getting this as a Christmas present this year!!

Rating:
Summary: Genius is an overused word, even when joking
Review: This book, which I read after hearing non-stop praise for it, doesn't come close to "Genius", but obviously the joke is that it's not supposed to. After all, almost everything about it is quote unquote ironic. Dave Eggers seems afraid to be disliked, so he admits to all his faults and exposes his writing's inadequacies right there in the text before the critics can get a chance to. At the same time, his melodramatic self-pity comes off as slightly egotistical at times, and whether it's meant "ironically" or not, it's slightly off-putting. All that being said, AHWOSG is an absorbing read, intermittently fascinating and always atleast interesting. Pick it up, but don't (as is always good advice) believe the hype.

Rating:
Summary: Verbal doodling
Review: While this book is not without merits, I found Dave Eggars annoyingly, self-consciously clever. His frequent use of stream-of-conciousness narrative is self-indulgent and little more than verbal doodling, a technique (if you can call it that) he also employs on the cover of the literary journal McSorleys. His self-deprecations seem insincere, as if he can just hear us protesting and telling him what a good and brilliant guy he really is. His writing reveals little self discipline and one huge ego.

Rating:
Summary: Heartbreakingly Over-Hyped
Review: True to the innumerable reviews pasted all over this book, the first half is raw but very fresh. Eggers is so tongue-in-cheek honest at points that it is embarassing to read. He is clever in his self-deprecations, making it both shameful and unavoidable to laugh out loud.

The witty angst of the first half didn't justify the sloppy second half for me, though. Eggers takes firm hold of his Jesus complex and slips into an exhaustingly superficial soliloquy. The book doesn't lose its edge, it falls right off it.