The Ignored

Rating:
Summary: What happens when we cease to exist as individuals?
Review: This book grabs you from the onset. The entire concept that our civilization has become so commercialized and so anonymous to the point that we've come to completely suppress the individual is hardly new. However, the way the book presents the topic matter and its consequences here is.

I won't go into detail on every aspect of the story since the editorial review does a very good job of that. However, I will say that it was an extremely enjoyable read and definitely one of the few books that after every few pages had me pause for reflection on the deeper meaning of what I just read.

Having said that, I can only give this book 4 out of 5 stars due to the sole reason that despite its very weighty subject matter and its careful and intellectual treatment of its characters and plots, the book did have several sections where it seemed to drag on endlessly without reason. I found myself in more than a few places having to mentally push myself forward because I knew that if I could just wither the storms of those few sections, I would be pleasantly rewarded (which indeed I was).

All in all, a very fine book and one that had me returning to the bookstore to find out much more about Bentley Little. More reviews to follow on his other books.

Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: I have never read this book, but if I had I would have praised it. Because reading the book would take so long, and because I know that if I had read it I would have thoroughly enjoyed it, I will go on to another book that I intend not to read.

Rating:
Summary: A break from the normal. Awesome!
Review: I just recently read this book and it was one of the best I read in a long time. The best thing is that it is not your typical horror novel. I highly suggest you read it. The whole idea is amazing and I just can't say enough good things about this book.

Rating:
Summary: HELP!
Review: I have read all of Bentley Little's novels (that I know of) but I cannot seem to find a copy of this one anywhere. Does anyone know where I can get one?

Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: This is the book "Fight Club" SHOULD have been. The premise of the two works is similar, but Little follows it to its logical conclusion and creates one of the most powerful and hard-hitting critiques of our contemporary consumer society that I have ever read. A brilliant novel.

Rating:
Summary: As average as the bland characters within
Review: A fascinating premise with loads of potential, however, a very uninteresting development of plot and characterization. What was the worst thing about _The Ignored_ is not that it really was such a bad horror novel, but that Bentley Little has ruined the concept for every other horror novelist with more talent and devotion. And the redundancy? Page after page after page of being reminded exactly what the diagnoses are for this lot of losers that Little chose to leave as stagnant and boring card-board cut-outs of every American breathing in the here and now.

I'm just sorry I bought it instead of borrowing it from the library. I suggest you ignore this book and move on to better novels. What little faith I have left in Little will go toward a second chance - I hope that his novel _The House_ is better than _The Ignored_. Again, interesting concept, albeit traditional - but we'll see where it goes.

Rating:
Summary: One of Little's Best
Review: The Ignored has a Twilight Zone type idea, sprinkled with horror, that is fantastic. This is Little's best book so far. Much better than the disappointing "The House."

Rating:
Summary: Dilbert falls into the Twilight Zone
Review: Submitted for your approval, one Bob Jones, an ordinary man, a man so completely ordinary as to be unnoticed. But where the common man goes without recognition, he is unknown to even those who know him. Mr. Bob Jones, the average American, who will start a search for himself... among the Ignored.

Did you ever read the Dilbert strip where he becomes invisible to his coworkers because his work had turned completely irrelevant? Well, what had been just an ingenious joke is now seriously explored by Bentley Little in this novel. Ludicrous? Granted. Outrageous? Of course! Not scary? Well... if you think so, you obviously haven't given as much thought as Mr. Little to all the possibilities in this.

Let me get out of the way the complaints I have on Little's writing style. The way the narrator tells the story can be irritating: he keeps nagging on the fact he is Ignored, over and over. He behaves at first like a wimp. And he seems clueless to the fact that he is driving people away from him. It's enough to make you wish you could grab this guy by his neck and shout at him.

That said, that's just part of the whole picture. The story is told in first person by Bob, and we grow aware with him, as each eerie scene follows the other, that he starts dropping from the face of the world, right in front of everybody's eyes... and no one notices. He struggles to understand what's happening to him, but this is just too bizarre to comprehend. It's just appropriate his narration comes through as alienated as him.

Alienation... The novel seems at first to be about this. But as Bob investigates further into his condition, he realizes he might have become so transparent because he is so average, so middle-of-the-road, that he will never stand out among the crowd. He is a man that goes with the flow, never doing more or less than necessary, never stepping out of the line. That's when the real subject of the story appears: conformity. Bob is so bland and predictable as to become irrelevant.

If you don't think this is enough to make this a horror novel, then one of several is the matter with you: You either don't care to find real issues in popular fiction and just want haunted house scares, or you are so confident in your individuality as to consider this conformity thing a big crock of crap, or you have just grown so numb to the problem as to not give a damn.

Other reviewers have complained that the story should have been left at some point prior to the ending, that it just went on and on after making its point. I differ. Even though some of the secondary plots are never completely solved, Bob Jones' odissey would lack meaning if it wasn't told in its entirety. He would have remained an static figure until the end. But this way, he becomes alive.

Mr. Bob Jones, a man who started to fade among the crowd and screamed out loud to be rescued.... from among the Ignored.

Rating:
Summary: Most provocative book I've ever read!!
Review: This is a book which touched not only on the horrors of being ignored, but also touched my soul with the depths to which the main character was ignored. The everyday events which Mr. Little uses to portray the horror of slipping into nothingness helped to bring home just how realistic such a plight can be. We have all been ignored. Some more than others. I feel this book will touch those who feel the lonliness in their everyday lives, and the people who are happy, full-filled, and content will find this to be a useless waste of their time. I myself have only the love and companionship of my children and husband, therefore I found myself in the pages of Mr. Little's book. A very terrifying proposition to say the least.

Rating:
Summary: wierd book, the last few chapter should not have been put in
Review: this book was a big suprise to me. it was great. the only objestion i have about it is that it should have ended when the main character was saying how he wished he was not ignored and we wished he was back with his girlfriend. the last chapters seem like mr. little was rushing through the book and just trying to finish it quickly. but this book man, you must read it, it is great.