Rating: 
Summary: UNREADABLE
Review: I'll chalk the success of this book up to a catchy title and brilliant marketing.David Eggers gives Generation X a rotten name. Most of us are sensitive thoughtful and hardworking folks, not whiney self-centered twits. This self-indulgent bunch of claptrap is a complete failure on 2 fronts. The first is the book's complete inability to communicate the complexity of human emotions when faced with the loss of a close relative. However, Eggers is such a shallow, soul-less writer, it wouldn't surprise me if he really shrugged off the loss of his parents with a smirk and a F**K YOU. The second failure is the unforgivably dull introspection of a man who is not nearly as interesting as he thinks he is. He lost me during his shameless interview for "The Real World" where he expounds for hours about how WONDERFUL it would be for America to watch his dull, egotistical ass on TV week after week. Why do people like this book? It's not compelling or interesting, or even a guilty-pleasure piece of trash. This book is unreadable.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm 21 and can't identify with him
Review: As the introduction states, some people should read up to chapter four and stop. This is excellent advice. The first four chapters are fresh, funny and very manic. After this point in the book Toph drops out and around page 150 you realize: HE'S GOING TO TALK ABOUT HIMSELF FOR THE REST OF THE BOOK. Unfortunately the narrative becomes overwhelmingly self-centered and juvenile. Was very turned off by his attitude. If the first four chapters could be released in a (much cheaper) novella format, I would have felt like I'd gotten my money's worth.
Rating: 
Summary: Bright Light on My Dark Icelandic Life! Thank YOU
Review: I live in Iceland & we get no more than 4 books a winter written in English. Because it's so cold. This one arrived by 3rd class mail from the States and I had never even heard of it. It has changed my life. I am moving back to California. I am taking hold of my dream to be a film producer. Thank you, David Eggers for you genius and creative facial hair.
Rating: 
Summary: Windy, and already dated
Review: Do you remember reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand? Specifically, do you remember all the speeches made by the characters, and how your eyes glazed over, and you decided that if you wanted to listen to dull speeches you'd move to Washington DC and become a cameraman for C-Span, and finally you would just skip the speeches and flip through until the actual story started up again? You'll probably do that with AHWOSG as well. A lot of this book is funny and hip, and a lot of it is tedious, precious, and overly clever. When Eggers sticks to the story the book is good, but he makes frequent stops to expound on his world-view and philosophy and this is when the book dies. Also, and problematically for the shelf life of this book, a fair amount of the subject matter of this book (dot.com millionaires, MTV, irony-soaked rich young people, etc) already seems tired and boring. I'm looking at my bookshelves right now at many timeless books that can and will be read for decades, or centuries to come, and still be fresh, relevant and provocative. Ten years from now, will anyone give a rip about Egger's attempts to appear on MTV or publish another oh-so-hip, ironic, culture-mocking/media-worshipping magazine? It will seem silly and confusing. Now, all books don't have to be timeless to be good, but AHWOSG has been so critically praised,and heralded as a landmark work, that frankly I was a bit disappointed when I finally read it. I'm not saying don't get it and read it, but just know that this a pretty good, fairly amusing book, not a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Heartfelt Anxiety
Review: Maybe it was because I identified with the author on some very specific issues (the least important being my living in SF), but I was blown away by this book. It surely rambles, but it's a beautiful and necessary rambling. I've rarely read an author who expresses himself so truly and so brazenly - I was extremely moved by the whole and by the parts. This book left me emotionally raw and revitalized. Okay, words cannot describe how I feel about this book (at least not my words because I'm not a great writer like Mr. Eggers), so just read it.
Rating:
Summary: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Marketing
Review: So Eggers self-consciously tows the institutionalized postmodern line, and then Simon & Schuster's marketing maffia gets the marching orders out regarding what postmodern critics must say in order to sell the book and retain their jobs. Literature hath fallen, and I expect the popularity of this book to wane, as others more deserving make it beyond the temporal, ruthless postmodern maffia who so dominate academia and the publishing world.
Rating:
Summary: Astounding
Review: Dave Eggers has to be one of the most naturally talented writers alive today. Beware if you read this book. Everything else by comparison will seem painfully mundane. So I hold Dave Eggers personally responsible for fouling up my ability to enjoy other books, at least temporarily. Since I finished this book, everything else feels dull, routine, stale. After initially being confused and put-off by the title, bewildered by the introduction, thrown for a loop by the appendix, and unsure of what to expect, I eventually just read the thing and was completely blown away. This book is at once painfully humorous and joyously heartbreaking. To hell with the compaints about editing. If you want perfect grammar go read Elements of Style. If you want to remind yourself about the joys of reading, if you want something refreshing and different, if you want to read a book that will become a part of your life, AHWOSG is a must read.
Rating: 
Summary: Indifferent you won't be
Review: A genius? an obsessed ego-maniac? a 26 year old who never grew up? a son who is doomed to repeat the past? a guy who needs to get a life? This a tough book to rate, since as the author himself admits it's a bit uneven. The book works the best when the author crawls outside of his own head and gives us the story--the death of his parents is so real, so awful, and so faithfully described in every horrible detail. Time and again, he circles back to his childhood and adds layers of detail and meaning, so that I almost felt the way the parents died was inevitable. The dark, wood-paneled house--the escape to bright California--the descent into chaos again--painful to read and true. Anyone who has experienced the shock of the sudden death of someone very close will recognize the recurring feelings that whatever happens to be going on can go "poof" and disappear in a second. Much less successful were the author's ruminations on society, the motives behind "Might" (does anyone really believe this 70's stuff anymore?), the "lattice". Eggars redeems himself however, by every once in awile letting one of the characters go "out of character"--most notably the little brother--and tell him to go to hell. Eggars will be an interesting author to watch. At the moment he's a little too impressed with his own cleverness--after the intro and the 400+ page text, the "corrections" section of the paperback was just TOO much. It's possible that this was his one book. But he could also become a very compelling observer of the US right here and now. Stay tuned.
Rating:
Summary: A heartbreaking Work of Mediocrity
Review: I like the premise but I, like the other reviewers, found myself, skipping full pages out of boredom. Every once in ahwile you find an interesting part, but to get there you have to weed though some boring passages. I liked where he was going and what he was doing..just needed better editing or something.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Bother - Genius this is not
Review: Vastly overrated. I kept reading this book in the hope that it would improve. It did not.
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