Rating: 
Summary: Highly Entertaining!
Review: I read this book for the first time years ago, when it first hit my public library's shelf. I remembered enjoying it quite a bit, so I was thrilled to hear that a movie was on the way. After seeing the movie, I re-read the book...Wow. Chabon is wickedly funny, and the characters are interesting and well-presented. Though the film is entertaining, the book is doubly so. This is a hilarious view of campus life, so if you're a fan of the academic novel, this will surely satisfy those satirical cravings.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining weekend of a loser
Review: Wonder Boys takes place over a weekend at a university in Pittsburgh during a writers' conference. The story's central character, Grady Tripp, faces a "perfect storm" of troubles during a wild weekend with an assortment of characters including one of Tripp's demure students, Tripp's partying agent friend, and other characters affiliated with the university. Grady's wife decides to leave him after discovering his philandering ways, his agent is seeking the completion of Grady's interminable 2,000 plus page novel and his mistress drops the bomb by declaring she is pregnant. The reader will essentially go on a trip with Grady during the weekend while he quarter-heartedly attempts to sort out his matters.The book is rich with similes, metaphors and references (that will even test your general knowledge as well) that illuminate the rather prosaic story. Chabon allows the reader to sample a bit of geography, baseball, Greek mythology, pop Americana among other wide ranging topics. But most deliciously, Chabon's style is leisurely, almost Capotesque, in taking the time to explore the characters through witty dialogue. You will get a full sense of what it would be like to be with all of the characters. Spending the weekend with a stoner and literate womanizer was never this much fun.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful
Review: Readers coming to this book via Curtis Hanson's wonderful film, as I did, will not be disappointed. Screenwriter Steve Kloves did a remarkable job of transposing it into a touching comedy, but when you read Chabon's original you realise just how much more there is in it and how perfectly director Hanson captured its tone. There's a whole backstory on Grady's youth involving a suicidal writer in the style of H. P. Lovecraft, and the tale of how he met his editor Terry Crabtree. There's much more of the visit to the Jewish family home of Grady's soon-to-be-ex-wife Emily, and more than one dead pet. Chabon's prose is remarkable. He sneaks up on you with an uncanny ability to be both laconic and precise, humorous and profound, erudite without annoying you with his erudition. To wit: "I'd spent the whole of my life waiting to awake on an ordinary morning in the town that was destined to be my home, in the arms of the woman I was destined to love, knowing the people and doing the work that would make up the changing but essentially invariable landscape of my particular destiny. Instead here I was, forty-one years old, having left behind dozens of houses, spent a lot of money on vanished possessions and momentary entertainments, fallen desperately in and abruptly out of love with at least seventeen women, lost my mother in infancy and my father to suicide, and everything was about to change once more, with unforeseeable result. And yet for all that I had still never gotten used to the breathtaking impermanence of things." And that's only on page 45. Writers (even, or perhaps especially, aspiring ones) will find this novel particularly engaging both for its story and its style. A true five-star affair.
Rating:
Summary: Michael Chabon ROCKS!
Review: I came to this book after seeing the movie. The movie is actually great and a pretty faithful re-interpretation of the novel. No movie however can do justice to Michael Chabon's prose. For my money, he is the best novelist working today. Read this book as a prelude to his greatest work: Kavalier and Clay. Also, watch out for the homage to the Fantastic Four.
Rating: 
Summary: To fans of Kavalier and Clay
Review: After having read "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" (AAKC), I swore to myself that I would absolutely adore anything by Michael Chabon. Now, having finished "Wonder Boys", I realize to some degree, how unrealistic that notion was. I'm not saying that this book is uninspiring or flat. No, not at all. The whole story, about a writer in crisis as he watches his marriage and career go asunder over a weekend of quirky, humorous events, makes for good and entertaining read. Chabon's writing is as masterful as ever, he still splashes the book with candid, deadpan quips that I thoroughly enjoy and am totally jealous of. There were parts I enjoyed to the brink of laughing out loud (usually, I'm a pretty silent reader) - e.g. the Beer Pong scene, with James being slowly acquainted to the universal joys of being drunk. That said, I simply could not stop myself from wishing more depth to the story. More scenes, more sub-stories from the lives of each character, if you will. Stories spanning different time eras, different backgrounds and histories. You see, the ghost of Kavalier and Clay was lurking somewhere in my stubborn mind (something like the tuba!), unwilling to be exorcised! This is the first book I can honestly say that was spoilt from unrealistic expectations and I regret that. If you want to enjoy this book and you've read AAKC, don't compare the two books. Wonder Boys is essentially the story of one man over a stretch of a weekend, AAKC is more like an epic tale of at least three characters over 50 years. They're really quite different, each with its very own appeal.
Rating:
Summary: WONDERFUL STUFF
Review: Read the book or buy the video starring Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Katie Holmes and Robert Downey Jr. A faithful film adaptation of a very funny novel, Chabon's best by far.
Rating: 
Summary: Take Two
Review: A lot of people didn't find my initial review very helpful, so I thought I'd give it another go. Anyway, my problem approaching this book was that I'd already watched (and bought) the movie and loved it, so the entire time I was reading this book, I had the movie in my head. I have to say that I still like the movie much more because it moves along better than the book. In the book, there's too much time spent at the house of Grady's wife's parents and the Passover festivities that ensue. While this section of the book was mildly entertaining, it doesn't add a lot to the overall plot and in my opinion goes on for too long. Also, I thought the end, after the conclusion of WordFest, also dragged on for too long and didn't contribute much to the story or the reader's understanding. I did, however, like how the book ended, because the movie's ending was too happy. I won't spoil it, but the end of the book is a little more subdued, where everything doesn't turn out sunshine and roses for every single character. Strictly speaking about the book, the writing is good, but as I said, the narration tends to drag in parts. I recommend giving this book a look, but I think if you watch the movie, you'll agree with me that it moves along better than the novel. How's that?
Rating:
Summary: Gritty, Hilarious, Touching, and Outrageous!
Review: Michael Chabon is definitely one of the best writers of our century. And he shows that in Wonder Boys which has all emotions packed into one - Wonder Boys is touching, sad, funny, and most of all outrageous! Michael Chabon comes in andout of words like a bunch of bricks being thrown around. A new novelist had arrived! Wonder Boys: Grady Tripp is a man having a bad day, his wife has just left him, his girlfriend is pregnant, his editor is a party boy who wont leave him alone, But when two writers collide with life in the most weird way, he finds that himself a animal homicide and a theif trying to help a student with some problems.
I loved Wonder Boys! 5 stars! Read it!
Rating:
Summary: Relatively lightweight, but enjoyable
Review: Like many people, I was introduced to Michael Chabon through his masterful American epic, the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay. Wonder Boys, is not on that level, nor is it intended to be. Instead, it's a warm, witty, and intimate story about the most common of all modern novel subjects--the writer working on his novel. Chabon manages to transcend the cliches of this well-worn genre, at least partially due to his excellent way with characters. Grady Tripp, the aforementioned writer, is as complex and realistic as one could hope a narrarator can be. All too aware of his own shortcomings, as well as those of others, he balances his cynicism with a light wit and lovable shrug that is difficult not to love. James Crabtree, his editor, is the kind of smarmy guy that skates by on pure charm. James Leer, rounding out the titular trio as Tripp's talented student, threatens to fall into tortured artist cliches, but is blessed with a complete lack of self awareness, and flaws so ridiculous that he is never insufferable. The women in the story are mostly shunted to the side in this decidedly male story, but there are any number of quirky minor characters, from Grady's obscurity loving father in law to the witheringly satirical writer "Q" (who is apparently based on a real author that Chabon refuses to name.) Chabon's writing is never short of masterful. Despite the occasionally obscure vocabulary and the long sentences, his writing is always readable, and never nearly as self indulgent as, say, Carson McCullers. What's more, it has an elegant ebb and flow that is difficult for even the most talented writers to produce. Like many novels, it builds to a slightly unfulfilling conclusion. Ironically, although the fictional Wonder Boys novel swelled to an unweildy, bloated size, I get the feeling that the real Wonder Boys ended a little too early. But this is a minor consideration, as a novel of this sort doesn't really depend on a splashy ending. The journey to the end is entertaining enough to make up for it.
Rating:
Summary: Great writing...OK Story
Review: This novel proves the old theory that I heard once when talking about Bogarts film "The Big Sleep" that is not the story as much as its the way you tell it. This is true here. The movie was great, I liked the ending much better in Hansons film and the music really added to the narrative. How many of you will back me up that this would have been a much better read without the 100+ pages of the farmhouse/dinner scene?
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