A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Rating:
Summary: Fun
Review: Don't listen to those negative... reviews... I took the book with me on a surf trip through Panama and Costa Rica but somewhere after the stolen wallet incident some stealy-boys broke into my rental car and took my backpack full of great stuff including A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius!!! So I'm here at Amazon to order another copy. . . the book is funny. It's fun to read and it's ment to amuse you. My advise is to just relax, don't take everything so seriously. You'll miss out.

Rating:
Summary: Snoresville
Review: I started out enjoying this book immensely, laughing, and rooting for the whole Eggers Family. I loved Eggers descriptions of his relationship with his brother Toph, there could have been alot more about thier interactions. Unfortunatly the book didn't end where it should have, before the Real World interview.

I lost interest during the Real World fake interview (how many pages did that go on and on and on?)It was a struggle to continue on from there. I have this annoying habit of always finishing a book no matter how painful, and this book was just that, painful...

Rating:
Summary: All that the Title Claims and More
Review: This book really is all that it claims to be -- don't miss it.

Heartbreaking -- The first chapter is overwhelmingly heartbreaking, but it gets worse. His description of his parents deaths is heart-wrenching, but not overly dramatic. You get the feeling, regardless of whether you have experienced anything even remotely similar, that you would have written it the same way. In trying to relieve himself of the guilt and injustice he feels, he vocalizes things that I have not even dared

admit to myself. At the same time, he does so with a rare and dead-on insight into the humor all around us, even in times of hardship.

Staggering -- This book is a journey through the life and conscious of Eggers, and he is shockingly self-conscious. The clarity with which he sees his own behavior, good and bad, is admirable, but borders on the obsessive. He even manages to criticize the book and some of his motives in writing it, within the narrative. All of this manages to keep a rather unbelievable tale grounded in certain reality.

Genius -- A relative term admittedly, but I would say it qualifies as one of the best works of modern fiction I have read. It's pseudo stream-of-consciousness style, but with the jargon and wit of the best twenty-something writers, was impressive and captivating. I didn't cry, but at times felt so emotionally drained that I had to put it down. I laughed out loud on many occassions and had to call friends to read them sections -- it is that funny!

The only real fault is that it seems Eggers got tired of writing it and just stopped. He admits in the preface that the second half isn't as good as the first, and I would agree. But it's really only that last chapter that I was disappointed with, so overall a fabulous read.

Note: Don't skip a single page -- even the copyright page is funny!

Rating:
Summary: Frighteningly Original
Review: Dave Eggers is a phenomenal writer. This book highlights Egger's skills as a wordsmith. Eggers dispenses with tradition. He often escapes the trappings of punctuation. He sometimes frees himself from ordinary narrative, switching to a lengthy interview that was seemingly borrowed from a script and the ridiculously amusing "Rules for the enjoyment of this book". However, his originality is often frustrating, and primarily is used to enliven his rather dull life.

Biographies are usually of the rich and famous. Dave Eggers is neither. His writing ability has afforded him the chance to write a biography and he accepts with gusto. However, his life is only fitfully interesting. The death of both of his parents within weeks of each other is dramatic and it allows a cloud of pathos to hang over the remainder of the novel. Dave's attempts to raise his younger brother almost solely (his brother and sister get rare booktime) by himself is also very readable. But the twentysomething angst is not so well drawn. Large chunks of content are devoted to the development of his magazine, "Might" and the relationship between Dave his indistinguishable and too many friends. Eggers wants to avoid criticism here by placing a warning that the middle section to the end is weak. Tough luck. Why didn't you get rid of it altogether?

If you concentrate on the highlights this is a very well written book. We do grow to care about Dave and especially Toph who's biography would be inherently more fascinating. Their relationship is very real; their dialogue especially so. And every moment Dave spends reminiscing about his parents is true and heartfelt. Eggers also succeeds brilliantly in describing modern day's misunderstanding of emotions. What are we supposed to feel? How would our favourite TV character react?

The best moments in the book involve a frisbee, a wallet and a Irish or Scottish child molester. The worst moments happen when Eggers becomes fascinated with an original idea. The real world interview which is used to describe Eggers backstory is unique but awfully overlong and so finally mundane. And was this John character real or was he, as we suspect at the end, just a character that was designed to show Eggers relationship with his father. Eggers is perhaps a little too smart for his own good.

That said, he is a tremendously talented writer and I hope that he continues to write. A fictional novel would be successful seeing as his biography is more fictional than most peoples.

Rating:
Summary: Every one of us was disappointed
Review: Our group of working professionals chose this selection for our last book club meeting. When we arrived and began the discussion, we found that not one of us had been able to finish the book! No one had anything positive to say. We spent some time trying to identify what the "work of staggering genius" might have been and were clueness. Given the rave reviews and the promises of "hilarious" reading, we could only conclude that perhaps we, as as a group, lack both an appreciation of good writing and a sense of humor. (Some of us are attorneys, so we couldn't rule out the possibility!) Read at your own risk!

Rating:
Summary: Read Catcher In the Rye again
Review: I read the initial pages of A.H.W.O.S.G. (kindly acronymed by the author early on) and was immediately engaged by its immediate sense of humor about itself and its contents. The point of view is fresh, frank, and funny, so I continued on without any worry. This, I thought, is going to be great.

The first portion of the book is concerned with the Egger children's transition from children in picturesque, suburban Illinois to "Party-of-Five style naifs" as he puts it, after both of their parents succumb to cancer within weeks of each other. After that, they are wracked with guilt and remorse like any child at the death of a parent - never mind both parents - but simultaneously kind of thrilled: David Eggers makes note of the desert island style thrill of being young and nearly totally free, able to write your own lifestyle in broad strokes.

I really liked the notes and observations about how the author felt about raising his nine year-old brother: his oddly traditional views about what Toph should and should not be exposed to; his paranoia about his brother's safety each time he left the house; and the dual nature of how he himself has to behave (like a Mom? Dad? Older brother?) and how his younger brother (Son? Youthful Ward? Friend?) reacts in return.

All this is delivered with a healthy dose of media-savvy and self-awareness, which still is okay. David Eggers is very funny, and set against the mind-bendingly tragic and statistically unthinkable events that make up his life, it's a pretty entertaining read. Just as you're really enjoying it, comes the tryout for The Real World.

Just the mention of the show brought the whole energy of the book down a notch, and the interview with the show producer slowed it further. Without going into livid detail (in deference to those who'd still like to read AHWOSG) the whole section becomes a sucker-punch psychological wank that stops the whole book dead in its tracks. Even precious self-awareness, funny siblings, and sleeping with grade school friends can't save it then.

For young people today who haven't gotten around to reading Catcher In The Rye, this will probably have a lot of the same impact and meaning, due to its contemporary setting, people, and issues. AHWOSG, however, is no subsititute for Salinger's well-crafted ennui and fecklessness. At that point, the only voice louder than your own telling him to "Get a Job!" is his own, and that voice isn't enough to sustain this work, which is truly heartbreaking.

Rating:
Summary: Kind of uneven is kind of right
Review: First of all: I didn't finish this book. On the other hand, I don't think that it is a bad book. It is quite all right, and some parts are really well done. But the book is so uneven that it is hard to read it through in one go. I will pick it up again sometime next month or so for a chapter or two, but not for a thorough reread. The lengthy introductions and warnings are funny, but do not last, and when you start reading the first chapter, you ask yourself why those intros were there in the first place. Are they a parody? If so, of what? And why does Eggers then proceed to tell us a sad, sad story right after these introductory pages? I don't get the joke here.

There are other things I liked, for instance the slapstick episode where he is on the beach with a girl, and thinks that a gang of Mexicans have stolen his wallet. I also had to laugh when they shoot the cover pictures for "Might." Other episodes were quite strange. What about the "Real World" interview? What does he try to achieve with his pseudo-psycho-babble? Again, I found myself excluded from any possible motive of inserting such a chapter. This is one of the most uneven books I know of, and the potholes were annoying instead of funny or surprising.

Rating:
Summary: Blah, blah,blah, blah, blah
Review: If anyone is even considering buying this book, I would seriously do the following: if you have a couple of hours to kill, go to your local corporately owned megabook store, grab the book off the shelf, find a nice comfy chair, heed the writer's warning in the preface and read the first four chapters. After you've done so, put the book back on the shelf and walk away knowing that you didn't spend your money on an extremely overhyped book! This book showed a lot of promise in the beginning, but lost me around The Real World interview (extremely boring and the purpose of having it in the book is for what, filler?) Afterwards, it started to make me mad. I think that if I knew this guy in person, I probably wouldn't really like him. Reading this book is like going somewhere to meet a friend for coffee or for a drink and all he does is talk about himself and how you should feel sorry for him because his parents died and he he has to take care of his kid brother. Does he show any remorse that his parents died? No, he just uses it to his advantage so he can get what he wants. Even the title is a boost for his ego. However, because the beginning was kind of interesting, I will give this book two stars.

Rating:
Summary: ORIGINAL, ENERGETIC, AND TOTALLY ENGAGING
Review: "A Heartbreaking Work" is a fresh, lively, moving memoir. Refreshingly singular, compellingly honest, and brimming with tongue-in-cheek humor, the narrative voice pulls you in immediately and delights you all the way through. This book is addictive. Yes, it's verbose. Yes, it's solipsistic. But self-consciously so. That's the whole point. The author is pleasantly unpretentious, taking jabs at himself along with everyone else, including the literary intelligentsia. As a friend of mine put it, Eggers has helped carve out a path for our generation of writers. Bravo!

P.S. We love McSweeney's, too.

Rating:
Summary: I've been tricked! Dave Eggers, I want my money back!
Review: AHWOSG is the worst bunch of self-indulgent garbage I've read in a very long time. This is supposed to be LITERATURE? I read and heard many reviews, all of them positive. So I guess it wasn't JUST Dave Eggers who tricked me.

The idea around which the plot centers (the loss of Eggers' parents and the necessity that he become his little brother's parent) in certainly intriguing, and in the hands of a more skilled, less self-centered author, I think it would have made for an excellent book. But Eggers simply TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF. There are many tragic and interesting events touched on in the book, but Eggers' style relates every event as if HE is the most importan part of it. But he is simply not that interesting, not that important.

This book was about a guy so boring, written in a style so boring that it makes me think each and every one of us should write our own memoir! Hey, if someone would publish this, they'd probably publish yours and mine! And dummies like me will pay money for it! (Of course, we'd have to use the "F" word a lot, to make it cool!)

After reading of Eggers' money troubles and scheming, I can jsut see him now: "Hmmm, the magazine isn't doing so great. What else can I try to make a bunch of money? I know, I'll write a book about me! I'll mention my parents' death, and my poor little brother, and people will think it's touching! My writing style might be mediocre and juvenile, but we can say it's HIP and LITERARY! Yeah, this will work!" Guess what. He was right. A whole bunch of us fell for it.