A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Rating:
Summary: oh so silly
Review: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers is a memoir, the life of Dave Eggers, most of the book is real but we are told that there is some fiction put in their as well.
Dave starts off talking about his parents' cancer deaths, both around the same time when Dave is 21. He describes his mother's last few weeks in great detail, which is not always nice to read about. After his mother's death he is left to take care of his 8 year old brother Toph.
This book goes deeply into Toph and Dave's relationship, which was what I liked most about the book. The way they act toward one another is so realistic and easy to relate to. I loved reading the dialogue between those two and hearing about their sliding sock games.
Lets see what other things does Dave have going for him...Well he struggles with finding jobs till finally he finds his heart's true calling. Him and a bunch of there people start a magazine. This magazine is unlike other magazines, it criticizes different aspects of the worlds and our culture, especially when it comes to government and celebrities. It's kind of hypocritical of him because he goes on about he hates celebrities and then when auditions for MTV's new Real world show roll around he is all about auditioning and thinks that he is the perfect candidate.
I overall thought this was a very enjoyable book. Although Dave's rambling was a bit much at times, I found the writing style quite unique and interesting to read. The tone was very whimsical, sarcastic, pessimistic, and lade back. I constantly found my self chuckling a the littlest things. Dave Eggers is very witty and extremely honest which really got me hooked in to the book.

Rating:
Summary: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Review: A better title for this book would be "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Boredom." I forced myself to read the whole thing, hoping at some point it would live up to the literary acclaim it had received. It does not. The book is an egotistical, one-sided attempt by the author to justify his own bad behavior and judgement with regard to the treatment of his young brother after the death of their parents. Stay away from this book! Devote your reading time to something more interesting and edifying - even the dictionary would be a better choice than "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius."

Rating:
Summary: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Review: AHWOSG is a post-modern memoir, a look at the life of Eggers, some of it real, some of it fiction (we're told), mostly real, though, with events condensed and paced better for a book, and, wait-

I'm writing a review aren't I? I'm probably going to go on about the plot of the book, then the way it was written, mentioning how it is self-referential, then references the fact that it is self-referential in an acknowledgement of the fact that it is a book and that you, the reader, are reading it, just like this review. Then I'll talk about what I liked, say, for example, the conversations between Toph and Dave, or the whole Might Magazine story-lines, and then what I didn't, that being, well, the tendency to drag on in some bits, especially the end, which went forever, much past the time when it could have stopped, and satisfied.

That, above, is indicative of the sort of experience present in the book. It opens with a neat little how-to-read guide, the acknowledgements section goes for pages and pages (and can, apparently, be skipped), and in my version at least, there are addendums, which I didn't read at the start of the book because it might have spoiled things for me, and which I couldn't be bothered going back and reading now.

The whole thing is an enjoyable read, if you can handle the self-referential, gee-whiz I'm writing a book that you're reading aspect, and while nothing earth-shattering happens outside of the first 50-pages or so, it is the voice of the main character that holds everything together. You get a real feel for him, and yes, he does ramble a bit, like I said, the end in particular suffers for this, but on the whole, he is fun to read. Toph is great, though he isn't really a 3d character so much as a sounding board for the narrator's problems, or a way for him, and us, to relieve the stress of a tense moment or a melancholy recollection.

Something worth noting is that, without the gimmickry, this book would have still worked, a fact which doesn't always apply to other books with literary tricks. That in itself is pretty high praise for a book that does, especially at the start, rely heavily on gimmicks and wow, can a book do that? moments.

Recommended, but you should probably read the start to know what you are getting into before you buy it. It could easily not be your cup of cake.

Rating:
Summary: Avoid this book
Review: I would give it no stars if that was an option. How great this book could have been. But instead, a smug 22 year old writes about his life which could have been interesting, but isn't. And how could anyone write a book based on these facts, and be able to draw no sympathy from the reader for his plight? I loathed the writer and his book. I really appreciated the commentary about his 29 year old girlfriend and whether or not she would be wrinkly. Wow, great writing. And the interview process for the Real World, that was just painful to read. This book was staggeringly bad and I wish there was a refund on books purchased that are just over rated.

Rating:
Summary: It soars!
Review: This is a memoir, but it could stand as a showcase of great 'memoir-like' writing that is so popular nowadays. As a stylist, Eggers is incredibly fluid, his sentences running on ecstatically, brilliantly leaping and bounding. Parts of the book clearly needed to be edited more (The 'MTV interview' that I finally had to skip over, for example.) Other parts go on for a bit too long, but in the end this is truly a wondrous and audacious display of pseudo-journalism and self-absorbed/self-mocking story telling. Definitely a book you should check out, not a perfect one, but worth your attention! Quite witty and fun! Also recommended: [e-mail] (a medicated memoir) by Tom Grimes, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez

Rating:
Summary: Turns you off at the first page
Review: That oh so hip and cool disclaimer at the beginning sets the tone for this underachieving, overhyped, ego-fest of a novel. Just because Eggers is aware of his novel's flaws doesn't make them any less egregious. Eggers, by taking this ironic approach to his own work, shows that he is a coward, too afraid to take real criticism and much too lazy to edit. I guess in Eggers' world, talent is measured in terms of literary verbosity, in which case Eggers is number one. The man couldn't write a true simple sentence if his life depended on it.

Rating:
Summary: What a difficult book to critique
Review: I guess the 707 previous critiques tell you that this book has received a lot of attention, and a lot of different responses. At 360 pages (probably 150 too many) I cannot critique the whole book. Take a look at the first couple pages of 1 and 2-star reviews, I agree with most of them (especially HumbleReader, a reader from SF, Jerry Brito & lydiacatherine). Despite the fact the most reviewers seem to have been driven crazy by Dave's verbose and overly witty prose and tried the same in their reviews, I would also suggest reading the most helpful reviews; I agree with most of them. In fact, most of them say similar things, the stars are merely their reaction to the in-your-face strengths/weakness of this book.

I would add that Dave can't seem to make a strong point without a swear word. To make a very strong point, put two additional swear words in front, and three behind the original one; repeat in the next paragraph to emphasize! Of course that is how some people think and talk, but writing is generally a more formal or professional communication medium. We should question our intellect if we view progress and the movement from four-letter swearwords to five-letter swearwords; culminating in an impassioned 8 or 10-letter super-swearword, repeated over and over and over.

As many people noticed, the book just falls apart in the last third, which normally would be a terrible thing for a story to do. However, Kathe Douglas's review offers a different perspective on this flaw.

Some of the enthusiastic reviewers really loved the preface; I completely disagree with this. For me, the preface was like chewing on a lead brick; with the rest of the book chewing on the chips. There are definitely gems buried in the first half of this brick; however, it takes some chewing and mental gymnastics to get at them!

Overall this is a terrible book that I would recommend reading. I hope that my first review helps.

Rating:
Summary: Title almost right
Review: As about everybody knows by now it's the story of a young man whose parents both die and who is entrusted with raising his younger brother (the ages at the beginning are 20 and 7 and he has two older siblings).
It raises some interesting points about autobiographies. Do we judge them by whether or not they are true, or by whether the author is an important and interesting person, or by whether the author is a good person, or just by whether they're good as literature? Were St Augustine, Benevenuto Cellni and Rouseau telling the truth and does it matter? In some recent works, such as "Running with Scissors" and "Memory Slips" the question of veracity seems very relevant. "Angela's Ashes" was marketed in the UK as fiction and in the US as autobiography.
Eggers pre-empts this question very cleverly by a series of witty endpapers (contents, prefaces, acknowledgements etc) that brilliantly transgress the usual boundaries between book and reader (I think this is what they call post-modernism - writing books about writing books). In the end we don't know what to think.
He has though of about everything a reviewer might say. The story acts out several fantasies. One is the desire of the child to be liberated from the parents, combined with fear of the parents dying. The love for the parents is poignant at the beginning and then as the book goes on we hear that they were unsatisfactory and abusive in many ways. The narrator is doing a better job with the younger brother. He is also acting out a Michael Jackson fantasy of eternal youth and kinship with children. He fears death and old age. His contemporaries die or become physically or mentally disabled in spite of their youth.
At the end he resolves some of these conflicts. He moves from San Francisco to New York and begins to face real grown-up life.

Rating:
Summary: trying to out-clever the clever
Review: i suppose one of the inherent risks of writing a "postmodern memoir" is having to deal with the insecure pretensions of your peers. nobody likes seeing the young succeed, especially the young. this book is an amazing accomplishment. one of the best i've read. think you can do better? try writing a book instead of a review.

Rating:
Summary: A Truly Awesome Book
Review: Okay, it's a bit long, but I must say that this is easily the best book I've read in a long time. It's clever, well-written, generally well-paced, absolutely original. Yes, it's self-concious, but the author is well aware of the books faults (as he states apologetically at the beginning), which somehow makes it all much funnier. I really recommend this wonderful book. It was simply one of the most enjoyable, effortless reads I've had in ages. Judge for yourself! Also recommended ---------------> [e-mail] (a medicated memoir) by Tom Grimes, a real howler!