Rating: 
Summary: All Voice
Review: The strength of DBC Pierre's award-winning novel is in the voice of its narrator, Vernon Gregory Little, a fifteen year old oddball kid from Texas whose best friend Jesus went on a shooting rampage at school. Because Jesus killed himself at the scene, there's no one to take legal and emotional blame for the tragedy, so the police haul Vernon into the station for questioning. Through a series of mistakes and an adolescent distrust of authority, Vernon looks more and more guilty despite not being at the scene until after the massacre. Dogged by a slimy television repairman turned reporter, ignored by a mother who wants a new refrigerator more than a freed son, and supported by his mother's best friend whose answer to every tragedy is a trip to the Bar-B-Chew Barn, Vernon is left to his own, not-so-sophisticated devices. This novel is funny in a grating way: the humor has a forced edge to it that sometimes works but often doesn't. Malapropisms abound and quickly get tiring, mostly because the narrator is not as ignorant as the garbled phrases suggest. The language is profane and sometimes clumsy, and Vernon's hormonally-charged psyche comes out in weak, meaningless descriptions, such as piano notes "tinkling in the background, soft as ovaries hitting oatmeal." With often biting satire, Pierre turns his eye to many facets of American society: the media, the judicial system, obsession with food, small town life, religion, psychiatry, families, adolescent angst. The scenes are over the top, which is perfect for satire, but Pierre never tackles the issues with any depth or fresh insight. Instead, this novel reads as a dark comic strip punctuated by profanity. It is ultimately more ambitious than it is successful. Even its thematic development of religious imagery is clumsy. Pierre uses Vernon's friend's name Jesus frequently in a context that could confuse him with the Christian Messiah, and Vernon often talks about being nailed to a cross; these references fall heavily and without real meaning. (I find it intriguing that both last year's Man Booker Prize (The Life of Pi) and this 2003 winner rely on religious imagery to convey the plight of a naif.) VERNON GOD LITTLE is a memorable book, told with a voice that is as distinctive as the best first-person narrators in fiction; however, a voice alone does not make a fine novel. I recommend this uneven book only for those who want to keep up on the latest prize-winners in fiction, and perhaps for those who liked A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, a novel to which this is often compared.
Rating: 
Summary: Charming - in spite of what it may look like on the surface
Review: It seems this book is really dividing opinions and I can see why it wouldn't be for everyone. The frank discussion of what goes on in this teenage boy's mind and the language that comes out of his mouth may not be palatable to everyone but if you can look beyond that I defy anyone with a heart not to be charmed by this story. At first I wasn't completely bowled over as I expected to be having watched the Booker Prize on TV but it didn't take long to get into this boy's mind and to feel the same embarrassment he feels about the behaviour of the adults around him, to sympathise with his adolescent inarticulacy. Vernon has given up even trying to be understood by the stupid people around him who won't even listen to a word he says. His wry sense of humour resulting from this treatment is infectious and brings one back to the same adolescent feeling of rolling ones eyes at the helpless older generation. In this situation that's so ridiculous it's hilarious, what else can you do? The book gathers momentum throughout keeping the reader on tenterhooks till the wonderful climax at the end. I really enjoyed this book but I guess there are still plenty of people who just will never get that lovable character Vernon God Little.
Rating: 
Summary: You'll enjoy this book IF
Review: Yes, if you appreciate a book the first word in which is the four letter word for excrement and which has therein the four-letter word for copulate (or a form thereof) thousands of times, (often three or four times in one sentence), and if this kind of language turns you on, you will enjoy this book. The jacket compares the book to A Confederacy of Dunces (which I read May 8, 1981) but that book was funny for awhile--but this book is unrelievedly dismal and off-putting. This is an ugh book, and I only read it because I try to read all the Booker winners--this one is a real loser. I cannot find one thing good to say about this book, so I will conclude.
Rating:
Summary: Will the Modern Holden Caulfield Please Stand Up?
Review: Reality TV, girls underpants and the f word; this book truely has it all. Vernon G. Little, who I found to be a modern Holden Caulfield with a bit of Eminem, is an anally fixated 15 year old who witnesses the murder of 17 classmates, the murderer being his closest friend, a Mexican student named Jesus. In his debut novel, Pierre takes us into the world of BBQ, Texas sewing circles and the hardest part about being surrounded by "phonies": no one wants to hear your story because they are too worried about their own wants. The realistic dialogue and the distinctive voice of Vernon create an atmosphere of dusty midnight bus rides and the salty promises of Mexican air. After Vernon's mother's affair with a supposed TV reporter from CNN and the eventual finger pointing at Vernon himself, for a crime he clearly did not commit, the beauties of American media unfold and a satire not too far from reality sinks in. Because this book has received so much media attention from winning the Man Booker, there are plenty of possitive and negative reports, but I am casting my vote "for". Not necessarily to say that it will be as important as CATCHER IN THE RYE, but it certainly shines a new light on "modern" American society and shows the distaint and difficulty of being a teenager, especially when everyone around is so willing to believe what is portrayed for them on television. I agree that this and STUPID WHITE MEN should be required reading for all Americans...If they would just turn off JOE MILLIONAIRE 2 for an hour.
Rating:
Summary: Booker Prize winning novel hits home hard
Review: I finished this book about 5 minutes ago and it left me stunned. This book is a caustic future interpretation of what American reality shows and courtroom media coverage are slowly evolving into. The main action centers around Vernon Little's mistaken guilt in a Texan school shooting that leaves sixteen dead. The main character is completely real, his actions and words strike a chord into the heart of any American. However, the Australian author has bent the laws of realistic diction a bit far with his Texas drawl, leaving annoyance in its wake. But even this does not detract from this allegorical masterpiece. The real message of the book is revealed throughout the last hundred pages, but the entire novel is threaded with bitter insight and hilarious satiric skill. This is one novel not to pass up!
Rating: 
Summary: The joke's on everyone
Review: Vernon God Little is not a terrible novel; it tells an intermittently humorous story, written in the currently fashionable rambling style of first-person confession. It's just not a story that bears any resemblance to life in the US. Sadly, it is painfully obvious that the novelist substituted watching imported US television for actual research. Instead of the Booker, the novel should win the Nebula, for bears as much resemblance to reality as does I, Robot. DBC Pierre - or rather, Peter Finley - can't even get the rhythm of the speech right, making supposedly redneck Vernon sound like a refugee from Manchester, UK. For a satire to work, it must be grounded in the subject which it satirizes. Vernon God Little misses by a mile. And since the book is not strenuous to read - as long as you're familiar with four-letter Anglo-Saxon expletives, you'll get through the prose no time - it is the perfect comfort food for those who like to jump on media bandwagons in the hopes of puffing up their own pseudo-intellectual consequence, but who might find, oh say, Oryx and Crake or Middlesex a little daunting. Above all, Vernon God Little is America for those living on distant shores so they can stop feeling vaguely anxious because their ancestors forgot to emigrate, or worse, emigrated to the wrong New World. Even sadder, for they should know better, the book confirms the worst stereotypes of "flyover country" for those smugly superior in the Greater Tri-State area or West Coast, for whom Texas is as exotic and unknown as Uganda. There are far better recent books about teenage alienation, oblivious parents and feeble-minded authority figures - some even written by real American teenagers. Please Don't Kill the Freshman by Zoe Trope or Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chlobsky are novels that would not (and should not) receive literary prizes, but at least know their subject matter. And there are far better satires of American mores and manners out there. I've read Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, Heller and Vonnegut are favorite authors of mine, and you, Mr. Finley, are no Heller or Vonnegut. As for shedding light on US school shootings, Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine provokes far more thought and reflection - and black humor - on the subject. What's so amazing about the hoopla surrounding the book is that Finley is an admitted con artist/supposedly clean former junkie of the worst sort; the type who thought nothing of swindling his elderly American benefactor out of his home in Spain, leaving the man homeless and depressed. Congratulations to Finley for once more pulling off a terrific con, brillantly hoodwinking the British media (thankfully, the New York Times, among others, has seen through the smoke and mirrors on the other side of the Atlantic.) But then, those who proclaim the Booker Emperor has New Clothes really only have themselves to blame.
Rating:
Summary: No Longer Interested
Review: Yes, this book, Vernon God Little, won the Man Booker Prize. And I usually love the books that win the Booker or Pulitzer. However, after only a few chapters, I find I cannot care about this character -- or any of the characters. Perhaps I should. I don't. As some other reviewers have indicated here, the continuous use of the "f" word in various forms is tiring. But that isn't the only problem; I don't care about the story. While some other readers have kept on reading and came to appreciate the book after initially disliking it, I would rather use my time reading some of the Booker Prize runners-up. I must confess that I also did not enjoy "A Confederacy of Dunces" or "Catcher in the Rye," one a Pulitzer winner and the other a classic, and both have been compared with this novel. And "Vernon God Little" does have some fine writing, vividly expressed through the troubled mind of a fifteen-year-old boy -- humorously. And maybe that is the crux of my problem in trying to read this novel, that it is a dark comedy about the aftermath of the killing of school children. After Columbine, I'm not ready for this. I don't feel like laughing. Doubt I ever will. Not in this context. But who knows, maybe next year the Booker will go to a comedy about the aftermath of 9/11. If this book is funny, then that one ought to be a barrel of laughs. The author of "Vernon God Little" is Australian-born, U.S.-Mexican raised DBC Pierre (DBC = Dirty But Clean), pen name for author Peter Finlay. Perhaps reading about him on some Booker-related web sites has affected my opinion of the book. I hope not. I try to be fair. The work should be judged on its own merit, though that is hard to do, having read about him. I'm sure many will love this novel. And it may turn out to be an "important" book. But if you don't enjoy repetitive "f" words and other obscenities, plus dark humor, it might not be the book for you. Last year's remarkable Booker winner, Life of Pi, was also about a teenage boy trying to survive. But Pi was a noble young man you could care about.
Rating: 
Summary: Elements of Past Faves
Review: This reminds me a lot of three books: MY FRACTURED LIFE (Rikki Lee Travolta), CATCHER IN THE RYE (JD Salinger), and THE OUTSIDERS (SE Hinton). If you enjoy these books I recommend you may like this one too. I found it to be excellent.
Rating:
Summary: good story
Review: I also read this book because of the Booker award, and to be quite honest after the first few chapters I was ready to put it down because of Vernon's habitual use of the "f" word which I was beginning to get a little irritated about. But for some reason, I kept reading and somewhere along the way it became a book that I didn't want to stop reading. And in the end, I can see how important it was to show how Vernon had a penchant for the "f" word. Like someone else mentioned, the style is very reminiscent of The Catcher In The Rye, and also reminded me a little of a book I read many many years ago, The Outsiders.
Rating:
Summary: Did you know...
Review: This amazing novel has just been awarded the Man Booker Prize, which is Britain's #1 annual book prize. The panel of judges, headed by Oxford University professor John Carey, spent the summer reading the best part of 200 novels and they voted this their Number One, beating other great books like those by Zoe Heller, Margaret Atwood and Damon Galgut (qv).
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