Rating: 
Summary: A Truly Great Quick Read
Review: There are some quick reads that enable you to overlook their flaws because you can pretty much fly through them. Then, sometimes, although this is rare, there is that fabulous quick read. The one that is funny, with great characters and an engaging story, that doesn't make you feel empty after you have finished it. The Wishbones falls in the latter category. I loved this book. It's about so many things I love to read about: music, relationships, New Jersey, fear of growing up, friends. Tom Perrotta has given us a highly enjoyable story about Dave, a thiryone year old guitar player in a wedding band (he's got a day job, but it's nothing much). Something happens to him one day which has him proposing to his longterm (15 years, on and off) girlfriend. Then panic sets in. Dave has never really grown up and the fear of marriage makes him do somethings he'll probably regret sooner or later (I have to admit, I was a little annoyed with him at times). But the pieces of his life fall together and by the end of the novel, he realizes what is really important to him. This is a satisfying and enjoyable read. Have fun.
Rating: 
Summary: Wedding Day Jitters!
Review: This story was pretty predictable but still enjoyable moving along at a steady pace. It was interesting enough to keep my attention but nothing out of the ordinary happened, just everyday life for these characters. Dave & Julie have been sweethearts since high school. The words "I Love You" have always come easy to both of them. Their love for each other was always there, even though they had several on and off breakups. Dave's always loved music and plays in a small wedding band called "The Wishbones." He's always had the freedom to play his music and live a half-way decent life by still living at home with his parents. Everything changes when the words slip out from Julie, "Let's get married." Will Dave decide to marry Julie, or continue to live the single life playing in the band? It's a decision he makes too quickly and then regrets after meeting Gretchen and having an affair with her. Now his decision becomes even harder. I would definitely recommend this well-written book for those out there who haven't decided to get married yet. Did Dave make the right decision or didn't he? You can make that decision after finishing this book. Maybe Tom Perrotta is giving a good lesson here-people should not get married just to be married. Where's the fire?
Rating:
Summary: A Gem
Review: I can't recall the last time I read a book that I enjoyed as much as The Wishbones. (Like many of my fellow Amazon denizens, I read quite a bit, so this is not an inconsiderable achievement.) Perrotta's characters are exceptionally well crafted, his dialog is pitch perfect, and his story-telling doesn't have an ounce of fat. Let me put it this way: Tom Perrotta is Nick Hornsby with chops. I'm not sure if The Wishbones is great literature or not (although it very well might be; Perrotta is reputed to teach creative writing at Harvard!), but it is exceptionally entertaining and well worth your time. My only complaint is that, as I writer, I occasionally found myself despairing as I worked through its pages, thinking, "I'll never be able to write this well." But that's my problem, not yours. The Wishbones is a terrific book and I promise you won't regret spending the money or taking the time to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Ever wish you played in a rock band and never grew up?
Review: Now in his thirties, Dave Raymond still lives with his parents, visits Julie, his girlfriend of fifteen years, at her parents, and plays guitar for a wedding band called The Wishbones. One evening, after watching the aging lead singer of another group collapse and die on-stage, Dave proposes to Julie. The moment she accepts he realizes that his safe niche in life is coming to a close. Dave starts looking for a way out. Enter Gretchen, a grown up rock groupie. Gretchen is new, exciting, sensual, and spontaneous in a way that Julie no longer seems to be. And the wedding plans continue. As soon as the ring is chosen, Julie suggests that it is time for Dave to leave the band. On the night the invitations are addressed, Dave finds out that Julie is hiring a DJ to play at their wedding. Tom Perrotta paints characters with whom you can identify and puts them in realistic situations that enhance the underlying laugh-out-loud humor. I could not put the book down.
Rating:
Summary: The Wedding Band
Review: This is an enormously likeable book about love, music, and, especially, the choices required by time, money, and cultural expectations. Despite these "heavy" undertones, this is light reading at its best, full of distinct, interesting characters, humorous unexpected developments, and a brisk pace. The story involves Dave Raymond, the 31-year old lead guitarist for "The Wishbones," a wedding band in which Dave feels both stuck and exhilarated. He has his own pre-wedding anxieties, as he finally proposes to his high school sweetheart, and then worries that he will settle into a bland suburban life sans music. At a gig, he meets Gretchen (nom de plume: Marlene Fragment!), an aspiring bohemian poet, who seems Dave's last chance at prolonging and preventing some touch choices. Perrota is great at irony, and he almost overplays this, but the book moves so quickly that one doesn't mind. Although some of the book covers familiar "rites of passage" decisions, there's some outrageous (and I've heard, fairly realistic) wedding scenes, an unexpectedly tense gig with an unusual audience, and the musical aspirations of the singer (think "Springtime for Hitler," but in somewhat better taste. I liked the comparable "High Fidelity" more; it better captures the depth of rock and roll obsession, but this is close--An appealingly light look at marriage, weddings, and some awful 70's music. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Within Reach
Review: Perrotta's style is extremely accessible. It's his ability to not use shortcuts or plot gimmicks, though, that makes this book worth reading. The characters and circumstances are all familiar enough for most people to recognize, but Perrotta has the patience and honesty to stick with what he starts with, allowing the end to turn into something that is entirely satisfying and beneficial to the reader. The basic message here is: be aware of what's around you--you just might have all that you need. I really liked the way he took the character Dave's external desires to be a rock star, and allowed the story to make them come true as an internal achievement (the wedding).
Rating:
Summary: a good read
Review: Like Nick Hornby, Perrotta does a great job getting inside the 30-ish male mind. The situations characters get into seem a bit extreme, but I guess it's easier to make a point that way. An easy read--but gives you a lot to think about. Can't ask for much more than that. Plus lots of tunes!
Rating:
Summary: Perrotta Speaks For Us
Review: Who is "us?" Well, we're the middle-aged white guys who grew up in the American suburbs during the late-Sixties and Seventies. In grade school we were electrified by the "Batman" TV series, argued about who the coolest Monkee was, and begged our mothers to let us stay up late and watch "Star Trek." We may have played in Little League, but we had more fun playing baseball, football, and basketball in the streets of our neighborhood. We were in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, but we didn't get very far with our merit badges. We delivered newspapers on our bicycles. We smoked cigarettes and manhandled pinball machines down at the bowling alley. We played spin-the-bottle with the girls in our church youth group. We desperately worked on growing our hair long. We listened to Creedence and The Guess Who, then Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, then Mahavishnu and Weather Report. We wore surplus Army jackets, bought ten-dollar "lids," and had blacklight posters on our walls. We understood that sixth-period coed P.E. was a brilliant tactical move. Nearly every Friday night we searched for the "big" party that was rumored. (It usually was pretty big, and always got busted.) We occasionally got into trouble, but mostly managed to escape by the skin of our teeth. We delivered pizza in old Corvairs and station wagons, while "Hotel California" played on the radio for the first of a million times. We wore our first polyester shirt. And, oh yeah--we played in rock bands at a time when the Shure Vocal Master P.A. was considered state-of-the-art, tuning could take half-an-hour, and there was no such thing as a monitor. Thank you, Tom, for telling our story.
Rating:
Summary: Tuxedos and Trombones
Review: If you've seen the movie The Wedding Singer, you're already familiar with the idiom of Tom Perrotta's The Wishbones. This is the story of Dave, a musician in a wedding band in the New Jersey of the 1980's, and how his life changes as he approaches his own wedding to Julie. He has been dating Julie for fifteen years "on and off", and once he's proposed his problem becomes not so much unrequited love as love too much requited. Though Dave is seen by his band-mates as rock steady and by himself as an all-around nice guy, the approaching wedding looms ahead like the end of his freedom and challenges him to make some unusual choices in his last summer as a single man. Aside from Dave, the other characters in the band each have their own story arc, well-painted by Tom Perrotta. Though I didn't find The Wishbones as funny as Perrotta's later novel Joe College, there was something poignant and almost naïve about it that was missing in the other work. A definite must-read for those who came of age in the 80's.
Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: The only downside to The Wishbones was that it wasn't long enough. It truly left me wanting more. Mandatory reading for any 30-something guy ready to take the plunge into marriage...and a little side note: The page on REM and Stipe was sheer perfection...Tom, you read my mind!
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