Rating: 
Summary: disappointment
Review: Would someone please get Dave Eggars a good editor? Full of promise unfulfilled, the book rambles on tediously after an interesting first chapter. There is an original voice in there but this volume quickly becomes a bore -- in spite of the possibilities inherent in is material -- as he is distracted from his story and good writing by his self-conscious style.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT WORTH THE READ
Review: Dave Eggers is disrespectful of death, he gives young guys a really bad rap, and the end of the book was so boring I just skipped to the last few pages. What the hell was this guy thinking? Maybe he was too young to be writing a memoir...or maybe he should have called it something else. Really disappointing. Wish I'd spent my time reading something else. Life is short.
Rating: 
Summary: Should be required for all twenty-somethings...
Review: A.H.W.O.S.G. should be read by anyone who is alive. There is so much truth to Eggers' descriptions of people inside this masterpiece. The second time I read it I could replace characters names with my own friends names. Great reading for anyone recently out of college, or about to be.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book -- Regardless Of The Hype
Review: 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius' was written by Eggers across the span of his twenties, and encapsulates that time perfectly. I can relate exactly to his oppressive paranoia, to his boredom with the suicidal considerations of his friend and his own, life-affirming response, to his utter self-absorption and his painful awareness of his absorption, it seeming out of his control and devouring everything in its path. Is this because I am in my twenties? Is this a physiological state dependent on the death of adolescence and the looming of true and sure adulthood? While I'm glad he wrote this book and appreciate it as a solid entry into the literary pool, I think it's 'bestseller' quality is owed, mostly, to it's perfect cultural timing. But it really is a great book -- regardless of the hype. Also recommended: The Losers' Club by Richard Perez
Rating:
Summary: Not funny, not compelling, not anything
Review: Dave Eggers begins chapter six of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by asking about MTV's "The Real World", "Is it interesting because it's so bad, because the stars of it are so profoundly uninteresting? Or is it because we recognize so much that is maddeningly familiar?" The same questions could be asked about his insipid book.The abundant critical acclaim heaped on this book persuaded me to pick it up, but I was left disappointed and wondering if the critics read the same thing as me. This book is the personal memoir of an intelligent guy my age dealing with all the same angsty, existential tribulations we all do. Perhaps this is interesting to other people, but I'd sooner just live my life. The one twist that arguably makes Eggers's life compelling is the fact that he lost both parents within months of each other and assumed custody of his ten-year-old brother. But Eggers squanders the opportunity to tell an interesting and truly heartbreaking story. He probably simply and honestly didn't live such a story. The book opens with his mother's last days, and this part is moving--especially for all of us who have been touched by a loved one's cancer. But then the fact that he becomes responsible for a kid comes across as just one of those things that happens to people. There are plenty of twenty-something single moms out there who don't feel compelled to write books about the minutiae of their lives. One gets the impression that Eggers thinks we'll find this stuff interesting because it's happening to him, Eggers. I understand that this is supposed to be a cathartic exposition, but it could at least have been engaging for my benefit. After all, he didn't just put it in a drawer when he finished it; he published it. And Eggers recognizes how boring his book is. The book is prefaced with "Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of This Book" in which he recommends that one skip two-thirds of the book because, among other things, "it concerns the lives of people in their early twenties, and those lives are very difficult to make interesting, even when they seemed interesting to those living them at the time." Fine, I say, but can I have two-thirds of my purchase price back (not to mention my time)?
Rating:
Summary: More self-indulgent tripe
Review: Books like this make me wonder why I bother reading "hip" authors. This book, like Jonathan Franzen's THE CORRECTIONS, is hopelessly self absorbed. Nothing about the author or any of the other characters is compelling. I kept waiting for some substance, but found none. Sure, there are some clever passages, but these are more than outweighed by dull dull dull sections. Dialog is especially hard to follow, particularly when the younger brother breaks character and speaks like an adult. This work is a fine personal journal, but for the rest of us it's not worth the time, effort and money to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: The phrase THIS WAS UNCALLED FOR appears in the front liner pages of the hardcover edition of the book, and signaled the gimmicky "I know I'm self-conscious" self-consciousness to come. Pages 1-41 of the book were real and engrossing enough to keep me wading, hopefully, through the total 375 pages. The experience reminded me of the movie "THE SIXTH SENSE"--a great ending didn't make the first 120 minutes great, too. Here, a great beginning didn't make up for the next 300 pages overwrought with intrusive, stylized and manipulative narrative "technique" that completely obscured Egger's situation, obscured his genuine talent, and obscured a story of genuine emotion. Ultimately what I wanted to read about was Toph, the golden-haired promise/unbroken brother-son. Unfortunately, Toph's character was distorted by the omnipotent monologues assigned to his voice by the author. Eggers should stick to "magazines" and guest shots on Cable's DINNER FOR FIVE until he's confident and self-actualized enough to use his considerable gifts to tell a story sans gimmicky devices. The real "heartbreak" of the book, if there is any, is that Eggers has a huge talent, but he hasn't the maturity to own it.
Rating: 
Summary: Preface and Notes better than the book!
Review: Truly, I remember being bowled over by someone with the audacity to name a book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. How could it not be hysterical? As I was swept away in the preface, I couldn't wait for the book to begin. As I finished the preface, however, I really needed to encourage myself to keep reading. The main text of the novel was quite a bit slower and drier and less engaging than I had thought, particularly after reading the breathless pace kept in Eggers' short story in Speaking With the Angel, but through it I eventually got. More than anything, that was unremarkable. I found myself somewhat disappointed, but bgan reading the notes at the end of the book anyway. And it picked right back up. So, all in all, the "bookends" were more interesting than the book they supported. Almost enough so that I recommend this book only for them!
Rating: 
Summary: at times, hilarious
Review: When I first read this book, I was on a bus and kept laughing out loud. I'd have to cover my mouth so people wouldn't stare. There are moments of brilliance in his autobiographical work, but other times where he is self-indulgent...melodramatic perhaps. He even admits to using his parents' deaths as a potential springboard to getting on the Real World (unsuccessfully). That being said, there's a lot here that I loved reading. Anyone who can find humor amongst pathos is a writer I enjoy (David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest comes to mind). It's not a novel, so don't look for a traditional plot or satisfying closure. It's a part of his life, seen through his very humorous eyes.
Rating:
Summary: Not Worth Reading
Review: Self-conscious, self-consciously hip, and thinks if he cops to it first, we'll think it's great anyway. I wasn't interested in this character, or in his little brother, or in anybody in his life. Everything was filtered through his stream-of-consciousness writing style, and I felt several times removed from any of the people in the book, which was almost a blessing considering how unappealing they were, to a man, woman and child. As I forced myself to read all the way through this (OK, I skimmed a bit), the thought that kept coming back to me over and over was "I don't EVER want to meet this person. Or anybody he knows." And just think, he was inhabiting the same San Francisco, at the same time, that I was. But of course, I'm a good decade older than he is, and among his other faults, in addition to uninspired vomiting of his every self-conscious thought, he doesn't like people who are older than he is. Sheesh, while he's trying to "change the world" (read: convince everybody how superior he and his friends are, and make them pay to read how inferior *they* are), other people in San Francisco were feeding feral cats, volunteering for the elderly, teaching illiterate people how to read, getting involved in their community. And what was Dave Eggers doing? Bleccch. My mother calls people who move here from the midwest and other places "the invaders" (her other favorite, because they're all alike: "thousanduplets"). Go back to Chicago!
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