Rating: 
Summary: Chill out
Review: I'm not a big English-writing-jargon-blahblahblah kind of guy, so statements like, "the over characterization of the mid-plot, doesn't even fit in with his standard style of the Victorian age." Whatever. I'm here to say that if you are looking for a fun book that is quick to read, buy this book. I liked it a lot. It made me smile. And I hate smiling.
Rating: 
Summary: Truly a book worthy of praise
Review: If you read any synopsis of this book, you'd probably think, "Wow, how odd." Well, you'd be correct. However, putting the book down and not reading it because of that would be a grave mistake. As debut novels go, this is certainly one of the better. It is not large, perhaps 350 pages, has a focused scope, great characters, and great writing. Steven Sherrill's poetry background is evident in the book, but you certainly don't have to be a poetry lover (I'm not) to enjoy it. His writing is gorgeous, interspacing long lyrical lines with brief five word sentences. His descriptive talents are amazing. As one who worked in a restaurant in high school, I can say that the sights, sounds, and events that take place at the Minotaur's work are exactly correct. Sherrill uses humor and humanity to great effect and by the first few pages of the novel, I did not find it strange at all that a creature with the head of a bull and body of a man was coexisting with humans in the modern South. I found myself identifing with some of what the Minotaur goes through, and found myself rooting for him. If you've ever thought about taking a chance on a new author, this book is an excellent choice. It will make you smile and at the same time make you wonder about what it is to be fully human.
Rating:
Summary: Truly a book worthy of praise
Review: If you read any synopsis of this book, you'd probably think, "Wow, how odd." Well, you'd be correct. However, putting the book down and not reading it because of that would be a grave mistake. As debut novels go, this is certainly one of the better. It is not large, perhaps 350 pages, has a focused scope, great characters, and great writing. Steven Sherrill's poetry background is evident in the book, but you certainly don't have to be a poetry lover (I'm not) to enjoy it. His writing is gorgeous, interspacing long lyrical lines with brief five word sentences. His descriptive talents are amazing. As one who worked in a restaurant in high school, I can say that the sights, sounds, and events that take place at the Minotaur's work are exactly correct. Sherrill uses humor and humanity to great effect and by the first few pages of the novel, I did not find it strange at all that a creature with the head of a bull and body of a man was coexisting with humans in the modern South. I found myself identifing with some of what the Minotaur goes through, and found myself rooting for him. If you've ever thought about taking a chance on a new author, this book is an excellent choice. It will make you smile and at the same time make you wonder about what it is to be fully human.
Rating:
Summary: A maze of eroded myths, a frail hope for tomorrow.
Review: It is a rare and special book that inspires the reader to respect it, not as an object of art but as a life story of someone we can only know through writing. The truth is, "The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break" is much more about the physical, tangible reality of M the Minotaur's experience than it is about the conceptual fact of his existence. A lesser book would incite a flurry of cannibalistic nit-picking; Sherrill's first provokes thought, and perhaps admiration. To dissemble it would be to diminish its accomplishment, and to ruin the experience of reading along with that. Thus, given half a chance, I could go on and on about the branching, tangential nature of the narrative, the stream-of-consciousness writing style, the deft interweaving of near-metaphors (like the irritated scarline that divides the Minotaur's body into black and white halves). But I won't. To do so would be to miss the point. Passages like "The Minotaur watches the crow pull the tissues out of the box until there are no more. Then the bird flies away." do not feel like artificial devices that the author forcibly introduced into the narrative to feign perspicacity. To misquote artist Paul Klee, Sherrill does not render visible; he renders the vsible. His viewpoint character has no great insights to share. M's vision is all the more piercing precisely because it is unclouded by preconceptions. He is much too human and fallible to achieve any great wisdom, but a lifespan that measures in millennia has eroded what vices and grandeur he once may have possessed. So, how does one address this novel in its integral, atomic entirety? It is a story of several days' events in the Minotaur's lonely, turbulent life. It is a story about cars, and cooking, and dysfunctional families, and abuse, and concealed emotions. It is melancholy, and weary, and real. It is carried by the quality and strength of its imagery (Sherrill's background as a poet is evident in every scent and sound of the Grub's Rib restaurant). A touching, delicate, challenging novel. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The End of a Monster
Review: My bet is that Mr. Sherrill has spent a good deal of time working in restaurants (I've cooked in seventeen myself) but found that his hard won experience did not lend itself immediately to story form (I've had the same problem), so casting about for a device (please not a murder mystery or science fiction, he muttered to himself), he finally struck upon the idea of using for his central character a beast from ancient lore, namely the Minotaur (son of Pasiphae by a sacred bull, in body half man, half bull). The gimmick should be transparent. It's a comic strip solution. Magic realism is the last act of a desperate academic. Yet suddenly this mundane account of an average restaurant employee, handy with tools, who lives in a trailer park, pines over a waitress, and drives a Vega, becomes an amusing, bright, meaningful, and engaging tale, something even to care about. The secret is giving his once merciless hero a conscience: in the old days the Minotaur would've ravished without a thought the lass he longs for while skewering the boobs who ridicule him at work, but it seems now that the ancient Grecian celebrity (besides being condemned to anonymous eternity, a fate he doesn't suffer in the original story) is obligated to social advancement, and the curbing of his bloodlust over the centuries has only made him clumsy and shy. There is no plot here, per se, but the situation is delicious, and the symbolism is infinite (think of Picasso's "The End of a Monster" or consider our own social progress and struggle to sublimate our animal instincts). And despite the novel's shiny scholastic armature, it never shirks its duty to entertain. My only small complaint is that the Minotaur seems to have some ancient mythological nemesis stalking him down the dreary corridors of eternity-the germ of a story-and Sherrill ducks it. Probably better that way. But why mention it? Nevertheless, this is one of my ten best reads of the year.
Rating:
Summary: So good I'll be reading this again in the future
Review: Not being the supremed learned type, I choose my books very arbitrarily. I read the jacket and if something in the book description grabs me I go for it. It doesn't matter if it's shakespeare or a unknown debut like this one or even a genre I never frequent. But I came across it by chance and was put under it's spell for the 4 days I read it. I got choked up a few times and laughed out loud a few more.
I'll spare details and dissecting it apart with a full analysis.
But this book is very touching, real, poetic and a must read for anyone into contemporary fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Mythical Creature Carves your Prime rib
Review: Oh, what fun to move in with the ancient minotaur for two weeks. Just when he's seduced us into thinking that he's just like us he reverts to his beastly ways. A great read along the lines of Grendel by John Gardner. A rare look at life from the monster's point of view.
Rating:
Summary: A Uniquely Wonderful Book!
Review: Tentatively, I decided to read this book simply because it wasn't like anything I had read before. The subject seemed too far fetched and I wanted to see if the author was successful. To my surprise Sherrill did a wonderful job! His vocabulary and descriptive talent made this story totally believeable! This book should have received much more attention. I look forward to another book by Sherrill.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable on more than one level.
Review: The bits and pieces of mythology in this novel are interesting. They make the book what it is, but the story can exist without them. Because the story at heart is not about the Labyrinth and devouring virgins: it's about the Minotaur and his humanity. A guy is more than his job, more than his trailer, more than his appearance, more than what anybody sees. This is a story about difference and desperation. Sherrill is a storyteller: his characters are true and tangible. Sherrill is a poet: he works words like clay, makes them do just what he needs them to do. I liked this book a lot. I'm just an average college student and I don't have time to read a lot for pleasure, but this was one I'm glad I made time for.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable on more than one level.
Review: The bits and pieces of mythology in this novel are interesting. They make the book what it is, but the story can exist without them. Because the story at heart is not about the Labyrinth and devouring virgins: it's about the Minotaur and his humanity. A guy is more than his job, more than his trailer, more than his appearance, more than what anybody sees. This is a story about difference and desperation. Sherrill is a storyteller: his characters are true and tangible. Sherrill is a poet: he works words like clay, makes them do just what he needs them to do. I liked this book a lot. I'm just an average college student and I don't have time to read a lot for pleasure, but this was one I'm glad I made time for.
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