Use Me : Fiction

Rating:
Summary: To the reader who expected more...
Review: A book with impecable style. Elyssa Schappell's writing is so down to earth, hilarious, witty and stylish that this story of loss is one that will force you into laughing away the tears. A true testimony to a daughter's love for her father.(A fabulous read for all of those daddy's little girls out there). Alyssa Schappell deserves a bundle of praise for this one. I just couldn't put it down.

Rating:
Summary: incredibly whiny
Review: and self-involved, not to mention USE ME could have used a good copy-editor. The author switches tenses all the time, and her prose is out of control enough that one assumes this isn't done on purpose. Sure, imitation may be a sincere form of flattery, but skip this ego-swollen attempt to poach on GIRLS' GUIDE TO HUNTING AND FISHING and buy the clever, touching real thing instead.

Rating:
Summary: Use Me
Review: I was excited to hear that Elissa Schappell had a book out because I am a fan of her work in "Vanity Fair." Also, I like books that have short stories or vignettes that link together (i.e. Susan Vreeland's "Girl In Hyacinth Blue" or Melissa Banks' "Girls Guide To Hunting & Fishing"). However, "Use Me" did not appeal to me. Much of the material felt contrived and gratuitous: the rebellion, the "supposed to shock you" sex, the multiple abortions, even the father's cancer -- I felt like a voyeur. Ick.

It would be unfair not to mention that this is a well written book (the reason for the two star rating) -- but frankly the good writing is lost in this novel (perhaps because it is trying too hard to be hip and clever!?!). Ultimately, this was a draining read and I was tired of Evie's self-obsessive, self-serving, and overall petulant behavior. Save your pennies -- I am sure this one will be remaindered.

Rating:
Summary: Short Story Snapshots Create an Album Full of Meaning
Review: Schappell's series of short stories link together to tell a whole story of love and loss, of rebellion and communion. Schappell is hip. Reading her is like talking to the New York teenage sex queen she writes about, (the Mary Beth "best friend" character) who is more experienced and knowing than you are - and ultimately less emotionally engaged with her own experiences. In contrast is the main character Evie who is so overwhelmed with her own feelings she draws us into every experience the short stories describe: making out with a French boy on vacation while her nearby parents taste wine; her crush of feeling as her father eventually loses his roller coaster ride with cancer; her sickness at learning of her best friend has shared a moment with her father that she never could; her aloof awareness of her own husband's straying. The stories start the two characters in their early teens and keep moving until until they are young, married parents. This is a feeling book and it read like a series of moments the author had lived again and again and again: imagery, the sort that is seared into the psyche at an important life's moment conveys the feeling present here efficiently. With more filler this book might have been a novel but I am glad for it's economy - the format is perfect for the exploration of everything that's intense about Evie's experience becoming and being an adult. I don't really agree with criticism of her obsession with her father, or her treatment of her children. In this book Evie comes to terms with the fragility of life and all the ties that bind are affected by this knowledge. Is Evie's life, as told here, relevant to human experience? Certainly.

Rating:
Summary: Use Me by Elissa Schappell
Review: The book is very well written, with excellent, well observed descriptions of places, people and events. The first few stories were absorbing and they drew you into the book, but after a short time, the main character, Evie, became tiresome because of her complete self absorption. The death of a parent is always a traumatic event, but Evie's total disintegration in the face of her father's illness and death became less about him and all about her. She was self destructive, and took out her pain and fear on all around her- her husband, her children and herself.

Evie expresses her feelings with clever remarks and wiseguy comments, which give the book a light and amusing tone. However, her self pity and inability to accept the inevitable is incompatible with the writing, so in the end, instead of sympathy and understanding, the reader is left feeling annoyed and dismayed.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, risky, beautiful, if uneven
Review: The customer reviews on this page have mostly served to illustrate the narrow-mindedness and/or naivety of the readers, rather than offering an insightful opinion of the book. Schappell was not interested in creating a cohesive novel in this book; instead, she portrays some of the scenes from these two women's lives that are the most striking, the most unusual and interesting. If you're looking for a run-of-the-mill narrative, read a different book, perhaps some genre fiction. Read this book if you're interested in a collection of stories that are interelated, capturing a woman's life as a photo album would, one rich snapshot placed next to another. Though the stories are uneven, the majority of them are brilliant, and you have to give Schappell credit for taking risks in this book that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. They are crafted in an elegant prose with evocative details; the most succesful aspect of the book, though, is that the situations in the stories are unusual, while ringing with a clarity and truth that is nearly impossible to come by. Schappell manages to go past the trite tropes and narratives that have been written over and over about women's lives, and to strike a deeper chord, whether she is writing about a young woman's pseudo-erotic experience with her professor, dealing with the grief of losing her father, or the eros of parenthood. That the situations she writes about can make readers uncomfortable is a testament to their success in exposing a deeper reality than the one we feel safe with. If nothing else, this book will offer a perspective that you are unlikely to have read before, and that will strike you with the authenticity of its brilliant insight and observation.

Rating:
Summary: Like a car wreck you can't help but look at
Review: The format of this book is a little hard to get used to. At first I thought this was a collection of unrelated short stories but it is stories about the same characters that jump from one time period to another. As soon as you figure this out you get drawn in to the characters and their stories. I'm really not sure I liked the characters or their actions( the main character has three abortions seemingly using abortion as birth control, she later has a child with some guy in a band who has no money and she resorts to medication to make her baby stop crying.) but once you start reading it's like a car wreck you can't stop looking at. I found myself anxious to get back to this book after I had put it down. I guess ultimately I liked this book but was disgusted by some of the characters. It's a good read if not a little unsettling.

Rating:
Summary: Great book for women!!
Review: This book explores the various stages of a girls life. She is trying to deal with growing up all the while coping with her fathers battle with cancer. Every daddy's girl should read this, it gives you a new prespective on life. She starts out in high school, and then goes to college. She copes with giving up her best friend for a husband and eventually a baby. Deals with heavy issues, abortion, cancer. Emotionally draining, but worth it.

Rating:
Summary: exceedingly blah
Review: This book is 10 short stories centered around Evie from age 14 on. She has a best friend named mary Beth -- who narrates one chapter, all others are narrated by Evie -- and a close relationship with her dad. The dad gets a terminal illness while Evie is an adult. blah blah blah

This is supposedly about the father-daughter relationship even as the daughter grows up and forms her own family but Evie is so uninteresting, so bland, self-destructive and whiny that I read the book because I felt I had to because I started it. I wish I hadn't. When I finished the book I felt like I had just watched a Baywatch marathon. Cheesy episodes that are supposed to strike me emotionally but are annoying and don't make much sense -- if you even care to try!