Rating: 
Summary: Queer is tasty
Review: The good thing about this book is that is it so simple to read. The words flow perfectly and you dont get tripped up on huge words that nobody knows. The actual story is about a homosexual smack addict and you really feel for the character. You are hoping the best turns out for him and his lover. The character is very likeable. I only gave it 4 stars because the book in the end goes nowhere. Not a great ending, but definitely an enjoyable book.
Rating: 
Summary: Full of compassion
Review: This book is so sad. Borroughs constant neglection and isolation is so dramatic that we probably all feel very sad about his experiences. "Queer" is a book describing a man's search for his identity and recognition in Society. Wonderful book that really needs to be read by everyone.
Rating:
Summary: WSB's most accessible novel
Review: This book scrapes greatness in its harrowing portrayal of obsessive love. Why isn't it a masterpiece? Because it doesn't so much end as just...stops. Still, a must read.
Rating:
Summary: WSB's most accessible novel
Review: This book scrapes greatness in its harrowing portrayal of obsessive love. Why isn't it a masterpiece? Because it doesn't so much end as just...stops. Still, a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Burroughs' best book.
Review: This is my favorite book by Burroughs. It is more introspective than "Junky" and more coherent than his famed cut-up works. It also has a softer, more personal feel than "Junky." This book tells of Burroughs' love affairs with men during a time when such things were not out in the open yet, which would explain why it was published so late. It also gives interesting historical portraits of Mexico, New York City, and other various places.If you like picareque novels, this is one of the finest.
Rating:
Summary: Burroughs' best book.
Review: This is my favorite book by Burroughs. It is more introspective than "Junky" and more coherent than his famed cut-up works. It also has a softer, more personal feel than "Junky." This book tells of Burroughs' love affairs with men during a time when such things were not out in the open yet, which would explain why it was published so late. It also gives interesting historical portraits of Mexico, New York City, and other various places. If you like picareque novels, this is one of the finest.
Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: Unlike those Burroughs 'fanatics,' I dig Burroughs more straight, earthy work, a la Junky, Western Lands (etc.), and of course, Queer. Queer is an excellent follow up to Junky, and yes, is very easy to read, which sometimes, like this time, works for the better. Naked Lunch is fine - funny, witty, unrelenting. Cut-ups - not necesarilly for me. Give me Junky, Queer, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Drunks and lust
Review: What makes this novel so affecting, when it is, is due to the workmanlike approach of the writing -- it's very simple and blunt, but not boorish: there's a well of emotion running through the words, and some of the lines ("He felt a deep hurt, as though he were bleeding inside. Tears ran down his face.") are piercing. The novel reads like a druggy travelogue into Mexico; we get this dusty sense of watering holes, where our main character lusts after boys in his incompetent way, and formulates theories on how to acquire a rare drug. He's a crotchety old bugger, full of useless information, in love with Allerton, a boy more beautiful and refined than he, who allows himself to be bought; out of loneliness or indifference, it's not clear. (You understand why Allen Ginsberg appreciates the novel so much.)
Burroughs is witty in his way (there's a great line about Allerton being untalented at removing people from an occupied space in his life), but because his writing is so permeated with drunks and lascivious characters, you sometimes wonder whether his wittiness is apparent even to him. There is one uproarious scene where he refers to "she-Jews" and then backs up and says, "I must be careful not to lay myself open to a change of anti-Semitism." And he includes an idea for a new dish, a pig cooked on the outside but still alive and twitching on the inside. But of course he makes it clear that his writing is very much planned -- he includes an observational point of questioning if someone really understands what you've told them. Like that, Burrough's is working emotionally subtly; his descriptions of sex, too, are quiet and understated, if included at all. There are some dream sequences that anticipate Burroughs' later novels, but for the most part this is fairly straight-ahead storytelling. Steve Buscemi apparently wants to make a film of it, and if you've seen his "Trees Lounge" you may get a feel for what the novel is like.
Rating: 
Summary: Depressing, and unnecessary yet prophetic of future work
Review: While it is a mustread for Burroughs enthusiasts the storyline in which the newly clean junkie vainly attempts to get laid in Mexico falls flat. What is cool however is the narratives that he places within the whole escapades. One of the most interesting books for people wondering what happened in between the straight Mickey Spillane styled Junkie and the wildly surreal Naked Lunch. However the best bits in this book were stolen in Naked Lunch. They make more sense in this book but with Burroughs that isn't necessarily a good thing
Rating:
Summary: Tear-wrenching Situation Satire
Review: William's QUEER was a stunningly perfect piece of evidence supporting the statement that "Nothing a person can write has the capacity to be untrue." As I read the book during a five-day visit to Gettysburgh University, PA, I couldn't help but laugh at the subtle similarities between Lee's sorrow, his overbearing affection for Allerton, his vulnerability, and all those elements also exhibited in modern day 'traditional' lives. QUEER is an unignorable read for the Burroughs buff and everyone else.
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