Rating: 
Summary: Cheap laughs made up for by real hilarity.
Review: "I like this novel because..." This is a real "twentysomething" novel, a bit of a guilty pleasure and the sort of book I pretentiously thought I should have stopped reading by now (I'll be ... in January). I thought the first part, still taking place in Manhattan, was wonderfully entertaining, but that it slightly (but only slightly) lets down afterwards. Shteyngart overdoes the satire a bit in the main section of the book, set in Prava: it would seem he relishes the part of the clever-clever, more-worldly-than-the-other-expats (who are trying much harder) narrator a little too much. The "marshmallow target" for satire that is the eager young English-speaking expat community has been pointed out here before. There's a superiority to his drawn-out ridicule that goes beyond just the benefits of having an "outsider's eye". I think his humor works best in his descriptions of Rybakov, the Russian sailor (loved the phoney, staged naturalization ceremony). The dialogues between Vladimir and Rybakov are some of the funniest in the book. Renders the collected works of Arnon Grunberg (Dutch-Jewish novelist of "Blue Mondays" and "Silent Extras") almost redundant.
Rating: 
Summary: A reader from NY
Review: Possibly one of the best novels I've ever read. Being a Russian immigrant who's been living in America since childhood just like Mr. Shteyngart, I can appreciate his clever humor and being equally attuned to the worlds of the East Village and Brighton Beach. I laughed all the way through. All I can say is I can't wait for his next book.
Rating:
Summary: Sharp, Witty and Humorous
Review: This is a story of Vladimir Grishkin, a lovable russian immigrant with old school jewish parents who are more concerned with their son's financial and social status than his happiness. Grishkin's search for wealth finds him up in Miami posing as a student trying to get accepted to a certain university. He is to be paid a hefty sum for his efforts, however, it is not to be as the man who organized this con turns out to be a gay bully. The story takes our hero to a fictional city Prava where he connects on many levels with a major russian mafiosi. The story bounces around with a number of subplots involving various vices, love story, and mistrust. Although I found the book to be highly entertaining and witty I had a hard time accepting the story as a realist... Great novel otherwise though. My own 2cents.
Rating: 
Summary: Good dialogue to repeat if your ever in Soho
Review: Mr. Shteyngart's debut novel is a brave attempt at telling the story of the 21st century immigrant experience, yet it falls short and makes the struggle of the idealist seem wrong if not futile with his comic views.
The layout of the book makes reading it greatly unpleasurable; if not utterly unreadable. With the reckless use of bold-face typesetting it seems as if the editor left for the final week before publication and a group of graphic desginers decided to play a practical joke upon the readers of this novel.
Obviously the desire to live in America is very strong with the decided influx of new immigrants every year; but according to this story the only great thing that could come out of it is that you could become a destributor of horse traquilizer.
I would expect something a tad more serious for someone as heralded as Mr. Shteyngart.
But, if your ever in Soho, it has an inordinate amount of trite dialogue that would sound quite funny after two or three apple martini's as bland techno music plays on in the background.
Rating:
Summary: language mostly overcomes the flaws
Review: Vladimir Girshkin, a Russian Jewish immigrant careens for various complex reasons (much having to do with attempts to make money) between the high-class homes of New York City, the tight confines of his bureaucratic office in the Dept. of Immigration, a Miami hotel room shared with a drug dealer (and that's his good side), and a penthouse suite inhabited by another immigrant and a fan. And that's even before he heads to 'Prava', where he shifts from mob headquarters in 'Prava' to various literary cafes and 'in' clubs as he becomes in series or simultaneously a pyramid schemer, a mob lieutenant, an motivational speaker, a lover, and a poet. As one might expect, the book is a bit of a mix.
The language, especially in the beginning, is inspired and comic with strange twists and turns of simile and idiom. The characters as well are inspired, especially the side characters such as the Fan Man and the Drug Dealer, who are painted in such broad funny strokes that they threaten to overshadow the more passive Girshkin. It is this passivity, and a desire to break out of it, that leads the main character into all the above mentioned places, and if the author strains a bit here and there to get him there, it's mostly well worth the trip.
The pace is uneven'it mostly sustains itself throughout the book but there is a too-long section set in New York that bogs down the first half a bit, though things perk up wonderfully upon his arrival in Prava, and the ending spirals a bit out of the author's control feeling at times too rushed and at other times too slow, while the epilogue is just anti-climatic. As mentioned, the characters are broadly drawn, more cartoons than attempts at realistic characters, and if you don't like that sort of thing, you won't like this book. Plot events too are beyond the believable at times, which fits the whole tone and tenor of the book but again, if you're the sort of person that will throw a book down yelling 'but nobody would do that!', then best to choose another novel. Mostly, though, it's the language that makes this book worth a read. I found myself laughing out loud sometimes and chuckling a lot, less at the situations than the language and the somewhat twisted insights (some purposeful some not) into American society made by the main character. It's a flawed book, certainly, and disappoints somewhat at the close, but overall a worthy, run read.
Rating: 
Summary: quite possibly the best novel i've ever read
Review: I loved this book! I thought it was smart, witty, and quirky; and if you've read and love David Sedaris, this is definitely a must-read also. They're very different, but similar in that Sedaris and Shteyngart both know how to tell stories and how to write well.
Rating:
Summary: A 21st Century Novel
Review: I think a lot of reviewers have talked about the antecedents for Shteyngart, ranging from Nabokov to Bellows, Roth and Amis. But I think Shteyngart is a 21st Century writer in the real sense. When you read parts of his book you think you're dipping into a Gogol story like The Nose, especially the surreal parts like the story of Stalin's Foot, then when you get to the social commentary on America you're reading Amis's Money. Finally, you find all the influences have come together to form a completely unexpected product which can only be 21st Century in origin. A recent article in the NY Observer about Shteyngart and his contemporaries talk about the "Eminem flavor" in their work. I think Shteyngart does sample a lot of beats the way a rapper would, but the literary product is deeper than anything I've read, seen or heard in a while. It's a fascinating book.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Jewish Mother Ever
Review: There are a million reasons to love this amazing and utterly hysterical novel. But I think this is hands-down the best portrayal of a Jewish mother seen in print. Unlike Phillip Roth who uses his mother figures primarily to make fun, Shteyngart's Mother Girshkin is as tragic as she is funny. There is a horrifying logic to everything she does from the "Jew walking" to the endless careerism. She's tough, smart, funny and completely unaware of what she's putting our hero Vladimir through. The only problem with the novel may be that the mother goes AWOL for long periods of time in the middle of the novel. I was so happy when she came back!
Rating: 
Summary: Borsht Belt Redux
Review: I'm usually willing to give first novels the benefit of the doubt, but Shteyngart has crafted a work so utterly devoid of interest, amusement or anything resembling talent that I genuinely hope that he is never allowed to inflict another book upon the reading public. The plot, such as it is, concerns one Vladimir Girshkin, a sad-sack immigrant living in New York, who, fleeing the U.S.A. after a run-in with a homosexual Catalan mobster, transforms himself overnight into a caricature of a "New Russian" mafia don in Prague (renamed, but not even thinly disguised, as "Prava" in the novel, for no fathomable reason). Vladimir lurches from one incoherent misadventure and dysfunctional sexual relationship to another, none of which are ever convincingly portrayed or developed. Indeed, besides Vladimir and his grossly stereotyped Jewish mother, none of the characters in the novel are any more than paper-thin; particuarly in the Prava section, characters suddenly appear only to disappear a few pages later, never to be heard from again. The silly plot and near-total absence of characterization, however, might be easier to overlook, if the novel were as funny as other Amazon reviewers have claimed. It's not. In fact, it's not remotely funny at all...unless you genuinely enjoy the corny humor of 50's-style Borsht Belt comedians. Many other reviewers of this book have also compared it to the satiric classics of Gogol and Nabokov. Have any of them actually read Gogol or Nabokov? The true antecedents of this novel are that excruciatingly unfunny American pseudo-classic _Confederacy of Dunces_, and the even more excruciatingly unfunny Russian TV variety show "KVN" (Klub Vesyolykh i Nakhodchivykh), a kind of Russian "Hee-Haw." Hackneyed cliches jostle with stale racial/cultural/class stereotypes and incoherent similes ("the clouds were like tree bark") as the book lurches to its predictable conclusion and Vladimir once again seeks solace in the West. Bits of interpolated Russian add an exotic flavor, perhaps, for anyone who's never set foot in the country; most people who know Russia, however, will cringe at yet another gross, cartoonish portrayal of the so-called "Russian soul." Hopefully, this travesety of a novel will soon be consigned to the Remainder Pile of History; it's easily the worst book I've read during the last five years, one I actually regret having bothered to finish.
Rating:
Summary: All Hype And No Substance
Review: With all of the glowing reviews plastered all over the cover of the book I expectede much more. What I found was a book that pandered to all of the usual stereotypes that Americans have about Russians and Russian immigrants. There was not a single character that was not a cartoon of how you see Russians portrayed in every low budget, low plot, Hollywood movie. Vladimir, the protaginist is able to change his personality at will to accomodate any ridiculous situation that occurs and is never at a loss for what to do. I understand that in many books you have to suspend belief to a certain degree, but my credulity was stretched beyond all limits by this.
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