Pizza Face Or, the Hero of Suburbia

Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: I began reading this book at LaGuardia airport, and two hours later, when my flight landed, had finished it. I loved this book. I disagree with the previous reviewer who called Andy "self-pitying". Are you kidding?? In fact, one of the strongest elements of the character, I felt, was his complete lack of self-pity. The narrator relates the horrifying, embarassing events in Andy's life with a brilliant kind of detachment. The book is laugh-out-loud funny and its narrative themes wonderfully subtle and, at the same time, incisive. Please bring this book back into print.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible Book with no point
Review: I do NOT recommend this book. When you read a book about such a pathetic character you want to see a couple things. Either a story about overcoming such obstacles or have it written in a way that makes it some sort of parody or social satire. This is neither.

All I felt was contempt from this author for his main character.

Looking at the picture of the author I find it even more insulting. This is a good looking man who wrote an entire book making fun of an ugly boy. I'm sure that was not the intention but that is how it comes off.

Skip this book. I felt like I wasted my time and energy reading it and hoping it would get better.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Gay Novels Ever
Review: Ken Siman's PIZZA FACE was one of the first "gay novels" I ever read. It communicates the feeling of being an outsider so poignantly, with humor and razor-sharp perception. It's beautifully written from beginning to end, and will stay with you. I admire this book so much and strongly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Humorous But Self-Pitying
Review: My favorite lazy-man's reading position is on my sofa, totally flat, with a book balanced on enough throw pillows to allow me to see the book without so much as lifting my neck. (This is similar to how people in polio treatment using a mirror suspended over their iron lungs used to read, and it's a little bit of heaven.) I have only read one other book besides "Pizza Face" which was so funny that, in my laugh-convulsions, I dropped the book and nearly rolled off the sofa. This book, of course, was John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces." When I dropped "Pizza Face," the corner of the book--I have the dangerous hardcover--hit me in the right eye. It was painful, yes; but worth it for a book this hysterically funny. If you loved David Sedaris's "Barrel Fever" (and didn't like his "Naked" nearly as much)you will hoot over this book.

Rating:
Summary: Humorous But Self-Pitying
Review: This book is very funny and stinging in places, but the reviewer above made a big mistake by comparing it to "A Catcher in the Rye." Main character Andy is much too self-absorbed to be equated in any way with Holden Caulfield. The author has some cutting insights into suburbia, the political establishment and human nature, but too often the novel seems to be a vehicle for settling old grudges.

Andy can find the basest motives in other people's actions, but does he ever turn that cynical scalpel on himself? No, he never holds himself accountable for his own less-than-admirable actions, or his obvious complicity in his own suffering. There is a surplus of self-pity and a dearth of compassion for others.

After a few examples of this the humor begins to wane, and a morose and whiny tone takes over. The villains of the book--Andy's mother, schoolmates, black co-workers, employers, etc., etc.--are portrayed with no real insight or understanding. This would be fine if Ken Siman had Salinger's gift for self-satire, but he doesn't. Many sections read like a drunk complaining your ear off in a bar. If only most drunks expressed themselves this eloquently.

The book has no real plot--threads that seem to be going somewhere just disappear without even a whimper--but life has no plot or structure, so one assumes that this is an attempt at realism. Formlessness is only a problem when it becomes boring, and some of the book's episodes (such as the one with the governor's wife) are so dull that one assumes they were put in only for reasons of personal absolution.

Despite these flaws, I enjoyed the painful, humorous candor of this underdog's perspective, and I look forward to Siman's more mature offerings.