Rating: 
Summary: a brilliant original
Review: This book fulfills the title's lofty promise. The initial chapters are full of gripping details of Eggers parents' death and the author's dismay and courage in dealing with this unthinkable reality. For the remainder of the memoir we watch him skate back and forth between his own irresponsible early adulthood and the overwhelming responsibilty of raising his orphaned younger brother. I still carry the image of them scooting across the hardwood floors in their socks and missing school, work just to play frisbee. His writing would be hilarious if it weren't for the fact that it is fueled by this incredible tragedy. Dave Eggers has my admiration and respect as writer, survivor and "brother/dad" extraordinaire!
Rating:
Summary: Exactly what the title says
Review: I can't understand how anyone would find this book boring or uninteresting. Yes, it is a roughly day by day account of Eggars life as he grew up, but it's incredibly interesting and fun to read. He has a unique style of writing and it seems as if he is just telling you a story. Not everyone deserves to have a book about them, but Eggars really does. The characters were so fun to read about (I hope he writes another so I can find out how Toph is doing) that I was happy to think that they were all real people. It will make you think about how things can change in a persons life. What if his mother hadn't died and he wouldn't have had to take care of Toph? It's amazing how he balances personal life with his friends and job. This is a great book and if you don't take it too seriously you will really like it.
Rating:
Summary: Love, laughter, life
Review: Wow. I was blown back in my chair by the energy of this read. Eggers has loved and laughed. He has lived. Experience this book.Notes, corrections, etc.... re: gen-ex review comments - This book belongs to no generation. also to the reviewer who found Eggers' writing childish - we should all be so childlike. Eggers is indeed a child -- and an old man.
Rating: 
Summary: i felt compelled to write so it must good...
Review: ok, so i am not the sort of person who writes reviews on the internet. especially not book reviews. does this make me a geek? a sycophant? maybe. i liked this book. you should read it. it is sometimes poignant, sometimes hilarious and written with an immediacy that is all too rare in these hard times (!) i feel as though i can identify with this voice- is he speaking for generation x? you might laugh. you might cry. you might, alternatively, stroke your chin/beard and pontificate about the author's unique appoach. "oh so post-modern in its' self-depracating and pathologically ironic approach in this media saturated world..blah blah" or whatever. it's just a damn good read, there really seems little need for the chin stroking. eggers has provided enough critisism himself. it's all pretty self-explanatory really. nice one dave.
Rating:
Summary: It's A Keeper
Review: I have the paperback version of this book, which I think is an advantage in of itself, because the reader actually gets twice the book for her money. I'm not quite sure of how I even heard of it, which is strange for me; usually I can tell you that I bought the book because a friend recommended it, or I saw it on the best-seller list of an on-line bookstore, or some such thing, but this time I found that the details of our meeting have already left my mind. But no matter. This is the first book that I have ever read where the author literally wrote the entire thing. I know, you're thinking that the author usually writes the whole thing stupid, but Eggers has written the entire book, right down to the Library of Congress information inside both front covers. Because this book runs to almost 500 pages (but don't let the count discourage you) I am thinking that the author must be exhausted. The prose is rich and packed, like a burrito with all of the fixin's, and you forget that you demand a plot out of Eggers (he provides one anyway). I have read how some of the readers of this book say that they have read it in one day, but why? This book begs to be savored, for each page is an adventure and even exhausts the reader if the reader should take in too much at one sitting. The prose pokes fun at EVERYTHING, even writing, the writer, the reader . . . and if you start going too fast then you miss things. But let's not get over-analytical here, because that would defeat the author's purpose. I liked the conversational style. It was good to hear from you, Dave, and to wit, to quote, page 34 of the Addenda, in incredibly small type: "I liked it."
Rating: 
Summary: My reivew of AHBOSG
Review: When I bought the book, I was so excited because it had received so many good reviews. I thought it would really be a good book. I read it and I was very disappointed. I expected more from the book since it received such good reviews. Dave Eggers is not a very professional writer and cannot express his ideas. An example is his numerous cursing. This shows he has to use unappropriate words to get his feelings across. This is a sign of an amatuer writer. I was very disappointed in this book and do not recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: ride the wave
Review: this is a great book, if you can take life one wave at a time. It makes way more sense if you have moved to the bay area from any other part of the country. To live here is to love it for all of it's madness. This book spoke to me like others have not. Maybe it's because he's young, or maybe it's because his parents died young, or yeah, the california thing. But it's a great book! What other author offers to refund your money? I recommend reading the preface after the book, but regardless READ THIS BOOK!
Rating:
Summary: Belt: Whack!
Review: I don't often laugh out loud as a result of something that I have read. I did laugh at this book. There were many points in the book where I laughed, not only out loud, but hard. It was better than Cats, I want to see it again and again... Rather than argue the meaning behind the book, I will merely say that this book gives me that wholesome and enriched feeling that I have had only two other times in my life... when my fifteenth son was born and when I read Mark Jude Poirier's Goats.
Rating:
Summary: In reply to "fuel for fire" and other negative reviews...
Review: Even though I was "forced" to read the book for a class, I found myself enjoying every moment of my "staggering genius" experience. Upon reading the reviews, I can see that the disclaimer that the prof gave the class before we read it was right: you are either going to absolutely hate the book or you are going to love it. For all of those people who hated it, who said that it's a waste of money, etc--I am sorry! Sorry that you "wasted" your time and money on a truly beautiful and "heart breaking work". For those who loved the book, I commend you for keeping an open mind and being able to appreciate and experience the rawness (green flem and all) of real life in action. To you, the person who is reading this review, I say : "Experience this 'heartbreaking work'--your life will be enriched by it!" Oh--and for those of you who loved "heartbreaking work", you will also enjoy "Goats" by Mark Jude Poirier. Your life will be enriched by this novel as well.
Rating:
Summary: heartbreaking work of staggering...
Review: Hey! Has anyone here ever read a book called Heart's Token? I think it's by Thomas Pynchon the guy who wrote the screenplay for Striptease (he's also a writer for the Miami Herald). Well, anyway, this book was a heartbreaking work of staggering... and I dare someone to eat a raw egg for breakfast and write a book about it and it might be better then this one.
|
