Rating: 
Summary: It's funny for a couple pages, and then it's boring, and then you hate it.
Review: ... It's funny for a couple pages, and then it's boring, and then you hate it.The only good chapter is the one about the way baby boomers abuse language. It's all true. Although the way he uses the death of Julius Erving's son to prove his point is a disgrace. The rest is unimaginative, repetitive (to no good effect) and pretty much disgusting....
Rating: 
Summary: pseudo -intellectual redundancy
Review: Too many lofty loose ends decorate this book. Historical references up the wazoo, but they miss any connection to what is being posited. I laughed sometimes, mostly while reading the introduction. There you have it-- the puerile nature of a boomer (moi). The immaturity mainfested by the writer is most evident by a persistent need to flaunt his education. This type of education is littered by complex references. I think "Balsamic Dreams" is the ultimate irony-a sellout commentary masquerading as a critique.
Rating: 
Summary: Good magazine piece padded to book length
Review: This book definitely has some very funny moments, and I even thought he made a few good serious points about the Baby Boomers, but it would have been much better off as a magazine piece. At 200 pages, this is a very short book, and yet it begins to drag halfway through. He falls back on too many unfunny devices to pad the length, particularly the seemingly endless series of sequences involving lyrics or titles from songs. I always love reading Queenan's short pieces, and even though I agree with most of what he's saying about his generation, I don't think it merited a book-length treatment.
Rating:
Summary: Walt Whitman wrote better lists....
Review: Queenan is really into list making-clothes, foods, songs, entertainers, dictators, fads and ideologies, etc. And he uses his lists of boring or trendy and even important events of the last 50 years to rail at an easy target, (because they are so numerous)for the excesses of their, and our, lives. It's probably a truism that the only groups one may generalize about and condemn out of hand without fear of political incorrectness are Boomers and Yuppies. I'm about half a generation older than the Boomers, but the only trait about them I would generalize about was their belief, in youth, that they could really change the world. And that amazed me, but did not provoke scorn because I knew it was not possible.The fact that they did not succeed only unites them with all those (though not so large a cohort) who also did not succeed down all the years. But some of them tried. And, there have been some victories, or partial victories by members of past generations and even by (Gasp!) Boomers. The world improves slowly and fitfully. And, like another reviewer, my defiition of obnoxious does not include those who obsess over foolish things. They are more to laugh at if any attention is paid at all. I would not recommend wasting your precious reading time (after all there are so many books and so little time!) on this book. If you would like to read long, laundry lists in a literary format, try some of Walt Whitman's gorgeous poetry. THAT will resonate far more than this pseudo "mea culpa".
Rating:
Summary: Edward Ox Proves The Point
Review: Mr.Ox gored on my inadvertent error of using "it's" instead of "its" in my review of "Balsamic Dreams". 9 out of 10 times I employ the correct usage. The usage in my original review was a "typo". The fact that he seized upon a spelling error instead of reading the rest of my review speaks volumes about the attitude Mr. Queenan seeks to exploit in the war against the Sixties Generation. I suggest that Mr. Ed read the entire review before making assumptions.
Rating: 
Summary: Reviewer's Grammatical Proof of Queenan's Thesis
Review: The previous reviewer of this book (Sixties Gen, July 8, 2001) inadvertently proves Mr. Queenan's book's thesis with a single stroke of the keyboard. He or she writes, "It's main goal is to trivialize...," misspelling the possessive pronoun "its" as the verb contraction "it's." This now pandemic grammatical error and many others like it (e.g., "between he and I") have been propagated by Baby Boomers to the point of faux-standardizing the usage, just as they have faux-standardized and faux-elevated rock and roll museums and all the other elements of faux-culture so wickedly skewered by Mr. Queenan in his mordant book. What could be more archetypal of the Baby Boomers' indifference to and ignorance of any rules or paradigms but their own, more signal of their willful disowning of an inherited past, than their nonchalant and cavalier bad grammar and spelling? I lost any interest in what the reviewer was trying to say the instant my eye hit the misused apostrophe in "It's main goal." Physician, heal thyself.
Rating:
Summary: Welcome to Smug City...
Review: ...Mayor, Joe Queenan. Maybe I shouldn't review this book, as I've always hated Joe Queenan. First of all, he's a self-described "Pop Culture Critic." Well, hell, so am I. So are you. So is anyone with an opinion. Any schmoe can be a Pop Culture Critic, because it's easy and requires no digging or research. All it takes is a brain, a pithy opinion or two, and a smug, self-satisfied outlook. Mr. Queenan, of course, has all three. The man can write (I'll give him that), and he has a sense of humor, even if his lists of Baby Boomers' dubious contributions to society get a little strained. But on the whole, his observations all come down to one thing: the self-aggrandizement of Joe Queenan. But hey, if that's how you get your kicks, go for it.
Rating:
Summary: Not actually funny. Pity.
Review: You know, there's a desperate sort of tone in most of these reviews, in which the reviewer points out that IT'S FUNNY so lighten up. Which would be fine, if it was funny. The trouble with Balsamic Dreams is Queenan's talent, which has never been wide or deep, doesn't take him far through the material. Does he need an editor? Sure. Does he need to be funnier? Damn yes. Does he need to find other targets? On the strength of this book, who cares, any more? Queenan is somebody who used to be funny. Skip it.
Rating: 
Summary: Missing the point
Review: As is usual with "reviewers" of Queenan's books, much of Queenan's humor is lost. Please, folks, do not look for societal insights or a groundbreaking thesis in this book. Just go along for the ride and have some laughs. Please understand that Queenan's repetitions are meant to be humorous and are not the result of bad editing. Relax, folks! It's a joke!!
Rating:
Summary: get a life
Review: Hasn't anyone ever heard of satire? Too much Dave Barry dumbed us down? Queenan is one of the funniest, smartest writers on the scene today and if you all are too clueless to see that you shouldn't bother readig him.
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