Flaming Iguanas: An Illustrated All-Girl Road Novel Thing

Rating:
Summary: Wicked !
Review: This book kicks butt.
It so funny in parts I laughed outloud. All I kept thinking was how true it all was, I mean if you decided tomorrow that you wanted to be tough and drive across the country on a motot bike, you would fall down a lot, you would be really scared when big giant trucks drove by in an attempt to splatter you on the road, and, you might even sing made up folk songs outloud in your helmet to try and keep yourself calm. Hil freekin larious, is what I think this book is. The writing is is a bit like having a conversation with someone super funny but slightly unstable. It is in your face graphic and offers no sugar coating of thoughts and feelings. There is no filter for the verbal rantings and that is what makes it great.
You will be entertained by this book. It was a very pleasent surprise. Plus the packageing is cool, you cannot go wrong. I want to go out and buy several copies and send them to all my girlfriends.

Rating:
Summary: Pleasant
Review: This is a pleasant and quick read with interesting illustrations and lots of them. Perfect for a summer's day when you're feeling glum. Look, this chick Tomato has never ridden a motorcycle. Before she knows it, she's her own gang riding cross country with only half the gang's name embroidered on her leather jacket. Very colorful like the cover. You gotta get this.

Rating:
Summary: Great Fun...I felt the wind in my teeth
Review: This was such a fun book...I still feel as though I took the ride with Erika. I loved this book so much I sent a copy to my rather conservative Dad.

Rating:
Summary: not just for girls.
Review: with the homogenous gender status in this set of reviews one might get the impression that this book is only for women. not true at all. it speaks to any person who desires to break with the conformity of modern life. being a big fan of jack kerouac and douglas coupland, i applaud erika lopez for throwing her two cents into the "youth with malaise and wanderlust" arena; and from the perspective of someone other than a white male. it's a fun ride... hope for many more.

Rating:
Summary: Frantic, Bizarre, Insightful and Muddled -- I Recommend It
Review: Writing as her alter ego, Jolene "Tomato" Rodriguez, the always-entertaining Erika Lopez spins a tale that you will either adore or despise. It is difficult to feel ambivalent or indifferent towards her quirky story and over-the-top first-person narrator's scrambled but passionate outlook. Adjectives such as "spunky" spring inevitably to mind.

If you love motorcycles and/or good old-fashioned road trip stories, you will probably get a kick out of this book just for those factors, which form a dominant (if not overriding) theme here. And if you dig artistic, literary and (shall we say) "offbeat" bisexual women indulging in irresponsible, unaccountable fun you will probably enjoy it just for those (equally strong) elements.

I followed Tomato's journey with a mix of pity and delight; she is a Latina Bridget Jones on wheels.

You might be distracted or even put off by the strange fonts and even stranger clip art Lopez uses, which I found amusing and curious but ultimately unnecessary. Frankly, I would have loved this book just as much if it had been published in a conventional format -- I don't think the weird lettering and frequent graphic inclusions added anything to the plot. Many readers, I'm sure, will find it intrusive. As for me, I quit noticing it after a while, like the subtitles in a foreign film. It remains an interesting choice, however, and I suppose Lopez is trying to show us how Tomato's mind works.

FI is full of rough and dirty adventure, including enough conflict and sex to keep the casual reader interested even if the bigger issues slip by. I felt like this book could have been 25% longer. It seemed to run out of steam and stop rather abruptly. Then again, the fact that she left me wanting more seems to suggest that she wrote a fine and memorable novella. Lopez is at her best when she describes the sights and sounds (and smells) of her life on the road with a tone that is reminiscent of Charles Kuralt while still bubbling with colorful analogies and images in the style of Tom Robbins. Her brutally honest evaluation of motel-room sex with a virtual stranger is uncomfortably hilarious.