Rating: 
Summary: Shakespearean tale set in Silicon Valley
Review: According to the dust jacket, "Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of Silicon Valley Family," by Jeff Goodell, is "a portrait of one family's fate in a brutally Darwinian world" and that doesn't even begin to describe this incredible book.
Think your family's got problems? Think you're stuck in the middle, enmeshed between feuding siblings and parents? You've got nothing on the Goodell clan. Set against a backdrop of the growth of the Silicon Valley, from sleepy little slow-paced orchard-filled bedroom community to the congested frenetic center of the new economy, Sunnyvale reads as a Shakespearean tale of a deposed King trying vainly to keep his dynasty together. And it's all true.
In this stunning memoir Goodell contrasts his father's downfall in the old world of landscape design and construction to his mother's rise in the new world of bits and bytes, and the disastrous effects it had on their children. Throw in a couple of divorces, plenty of drugs, enough alcohol to fill the San Francisco bay, cancer, AIDS, and the prodigal return of a robot building grandfather, and you've got one hell of a good book.
This is truly "can't put down" reading at its best. Jeff Goodell is also the author of The Cyberthief and the Samurai. I give a strong recommendation for Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of Silicon Valley Family.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Truth in Advertising....
Review: I am Mr. Goodell's contemporary in time and space: I am two years his senior, and grew up about 2 miles from him in Sunnyvale. While Mr. Goodell left the Valley at 20, I stayed for 40 years. While his family scattered, my mother is still in the home that I was raised in. While he is an author, both my husband and I spent our careers in high-tech. His father was a landscaper, mine worked at Lockheed. His family history was atypical for Sunnyvale in the 60s and early 70s. I know where his school is (it is the Mother School of my own), where the house he grew up in is, and the locales where his story plays out. However, Mr. Goodell misses many major opportunities with this book: he starts his story when he reaches adulthood (19) and his family has "fallen". He doesn't talk about growing up in an enviornment that takes on the characteristics of the changes that swirl around him: from agricultural economy to high-tech; he doesn't comment on the conflict between the defense contractors and the anti-war high-tech utopians; and he doesn't relate the growth, the passion, the intensity, the joy of people creating an industry. He leaves Sunnyvale, and 90% of his tale is from a distance. He speaks with the voice of an outsider, a person who had no connection to the passions of the community.This is a terrific human interest story, a roadmap of children coming to grips with divorce, a man coming into his own. It is NOT, however, the story of Sunnyvale, nor is it the story of a Silicon Valley Family. While it was good on it's own merits, it was a total disappointment based on it's title and hype.
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Summary: A mixture of sadness and triumph
Review: I bought this book knowing that it would contain a life different from the one I feel I will have: The cubicle life. The book starts with a divorce that at first does not seem devastating, but soon has an effect on each family member. The author, Jeff, tries a different route than taken by his father and mother and struggles along the way. Jerry, his younger brother who aspires to be a musician, ruins his life in meaningless relationships and alcohol. Jill, also a younger sibling, wants to work at Apple Computer, even though she discards her education for late-night adventures with friends. The father tries to begin his destroyed life after losing his job and his wife who he was very attached to. The mother goes a seperate way from her husband as she continues her job at Apple Computer. But further inside the story, we see the pursuit of redemption as each character begins to pick up the pieces of their lives. A very good book!
Rating: 
Summary: A pleasant surprise.
Review: I didn't know anything about this story or author when I picked up this book; I just wanted to read it because I grew up in Sunnyvale (and still live in the Bay Area). I found that the story moves along quietly and rather gently while describing serious subject matter: a family is broken apart by divorce. Meanwhile, the vast promise of the Silicon Valley is the background. It was a very honest portrayal of life and troubles in this area, very authentic to me: my father was an immigrant, drawn to California and the Bay Area as the promised land, and he was very much like the men in this book, wanting success, to make something of himself, expecting the best from his children, pressuring them to succeed because how can you possibly fail when you live in an Eichler home in a place called Sunnyvale in the place that created the technological revolution? Like the author himself, I was not the least bit drawn to the computer industry, wanting instead to be artistic and creative. Therefore, I never belonging here. I've been trying to get out of this area for years; in the book, the lead character/author moves to New York. I never realized that those of us who grew up in Sunnyvale could have similar life experiences despite differences in ethnicity, family background, etc. Your hometown influences you and your family and every part of your life. How nice to read a book that illustrates this so effectively.
Rating:
Summary: Vivid portrayal of the valley
Review: I felt so connected to "the valley" while reading this book. I grew up in Sunnyvale and surrounding towns and knew exactly where the author was when he described the area. What for me seemed like "Anywhere, USA" became unique in my eyes for the first time. It has been an experience watching the area explode with change thoughout my life.
Goodell does a great job of describing the pain in ordinary lives, and I could feel his honest emotion shine through without any gushiness or corniness: the experience of being human in our modern times. Thanks, Mr. Goodell for a great, meaningful book!
Rating:
Summary: A pleasant surprise.
Review: I felt so connected to "the valley" while reading this book. I grew up in Sunnyvale and surrounding towns and knew exactly where the author was when he described the area. What for me seemed like "Anywhere, USA" became unique in my eyes for the first time. It has been an experience watching the area explode with change thoughout my life.
Goodell does a great job of describing the pain in ordinary lives, and I could feel his honest emotion shine through without any gushiness or corniness: the experience of being human in our modern times. Thanks, Mr. Goodell for a great, meaningful book!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent memoir
Review: I'm not usually a non-fiction reader, but thoroughly enjoyed this book. Excellent study in family dynamics and the author's maturation from know-it-all teenager to an adult who realizes that nobody can ever know-it-all. Very well written. I recommend it highly.
Rating:
Summary: Read it in one sitting
Review: It's been at least five years since I read a book in one sitting, but that's just what I did with Sunnyvale. It had the tension and narrative drive of the best fiction, coupled with the pathos and uncertainty of real life. My childhood was nothing like the the author's, but I still felt a connection as he wrote about a family struggling with what that word means, even as the family and individuals within it began to disintegrate.
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Summary: Fast Times After the Divorce in Silicon Valley
Review: Jeff Goodell has written a revealing portrait of his family, centered around the divorce of his parents when he was 19. Although it seemed like no big event to him at the time, he, his slightly younger brother, and his much younger sister struggled for years for identity following this event. In the process, they found it difficult to establish their own goals and to define appropriate relationships with each other in the family. This difficulty extended into troubled personal relations with the opposite sex. Sunnyvale is a small town located in the middle of Silicon Valley in California. Interwoven with the story is the family's sometimes connection and usual lack of connection to the technological revolution being created there. The author worked at Apple Computer, as did his mother, in the heady days just before the IPO and the development of the Mac. To Mr. Goodell at the time, Apple was just a paycheck, a place where his Mom could get him a job. Soon bored, he left and worked in casinos at Lake Tahoe. Only years later did he discover a love for computers when his parents sent him a Mac to help him with his writing. His mother, on the other hand, moved towards technology. First, getting more training, she went on to become a component designer of printed circuit boards. His father was never able to connect with the technology revolution, nor was his brother. After false starts and delays, his sister did. Mr. Goodell eventually becomes better acquainted with his father's father, and finds that he has always been involved with technology. The story has two appealing qualities. Despite the fact that members of the family drove each other crazy, they did a great deal to help one another. In a sense, they became a stronger family after the divorce by calling on and doing more to be there for each other. This was quite a challenge, as the younger brother, Jerry, went through horrible ups and downs. The father also develops health problems and needs emotional and physical support from his children, since he did not remarry. His remarried ex-wife cannot fill in as she would have if they had remained married. The second appeal is in what the author discovered about relationships in the prior three generations of his family. Many of the problems that he, his parents, and siblings experienced had played themselves out in these earlier families. From this, he learned a much greater appreciation for his father because his father had never distanced himself from the family, even though there had been a divorce. The metaphor of recovering from an earthquake kept coming to mind as I read this book. At the moment it occurs, fear reigns. Afterwards, you find yourself worried by vague uneasiness and cannot have the same carefree feeling. Long after the physical damage is gone, the psychological strains are still there. My mother can still become quite distraught recounting a story of a large earthquake when she was a little girl. That's what seems to have happened to these people. I was also struck that many of the problems here related to poor communications. The mother had decided she did not want to marry the father originally, but her mother made her go through with the wedding so the family would not be talked about by the neighbors. How much different would their lives have been if the marriage had not occurred or if the mother and father had talked it through. As it was, the father never knew of his wife's discomfort in the marriage until it was too late. The relationships between the parents and their children, the children with each other, the children with others, and those in earlier generations with each other were all flawed by extreme reticence about important feelings and subjects. As a writer, the author seems to have overcome this reticence is a way that should serve him and his family well in the future. I admire the Goodells for being willing to share their pain and experiences with us so that we can learn to avoid some of these problems in our lives. After you finish this book, I suggest that you think about 3 important things that you never discuss with your family. Then make it a point to do so. And encourage the other family members to do the same with you. Some fresh air on these subjects can create a much stronger and healthier bond among all of you. You won't learn anything about technology from this book, but you will get important insights into what a family can be, even after divorce.
Rating:
Summary: Great story of a nuclear family
Review: Loved this book. The author has an unnerving talent to wrap you completely into his family. I couldn't put this book down and hated for it to end. This is one book that will stick with me for a while.
The Silicon Valley aspect is secondary. This is the true tale of what all too commonly happens to children of divorce. Jeff's mother decides she no longer wants to be married. It's time for HER to have fun--she immerses herself in her career (which she has started before her divorce) and loves the dating scene. No longer putting her children first, they drift. Drugs, sex, no real place to call home, and no one to truly parent them. Jeff is the least impacted--already out of high school, he flees Silicon Valley and later enrolls in Berkeley. Jeff brother Jerry doesn't come out so lucky. Jeff's young sister Jill lives her life as she pleases--stays out all night, drops out of school. Mom continues to be more concerned about her own fun. Dad is still around, lost on his own, and seemingly unable to provide much emotional support for his kids. Maybe part of my attraction to this book lies in the similarities to my own life. I suppose many would find this book a depressing read. I found it encouraging to see Jeff and Jill land on their feet and lead their own productive lives.
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