Like a Hole in the Head

Rating:
Summary: Great One Liners, Fun Read, Questionable ending
Review: I disagree with one of the reader's comments that the author has read too many Tom Robbins novels. I would say that Kinky Friedman would be a more accurate comparison. This is by no means a complaint. I like Kinky's books, and I like this one. Just like Kinky's books, don't buy this one for the plot or the mystery. Buy it for the witty, sarcastic banter and the interesting characters. It didn't hurt that the main character was portrayed as being sexy, intelligent, sarcastic, self loathing, and aloof-every self destructive male's dream. Needless to say, I was smitten with the main character. Unfortunately, the end of the story was not tied up very nicely, and I think there were some glitches. (Of course, there's always the possibility that I just didn't completely get it, but I doubt it.)

Just to reiterate-this was a fun book, but if you're a mystery buff, (Which I am not) you may be disappointed. The author is a promising one, and I will definitely read her next book.

Rating:
Summary: great writing - draggy story
Review: Jill enjoys her part time job at the secondhand bookstore because she gets a lot of time to read. One day a fidgety dwarf comes into the store with a rare first edition he'd like to sell. Jill takes it off his hands for a modest price and soon resells it. It isn't long, however, before the original owner of the book wants it back. Jill has to find the book, or things will get very ugly. So Jill embarks on a wild quest that leads her to Las Vegas and back to L.A. in time to be coerced into appearing as an extra in a famous director's new film. All the while a cadre of third-rate actors are hot on her tail.

LIKE A HOLE IN A HEAD is a hip and very funny mystery-adventure with a witty, sarcastic protagonist. (Just my type!) There are laughs on every page, even during the nasty bits. My only small complaint is with Banbury's writing style. She's constantly breaking up what should be longer sentences into fragments. It's really distracting. Better editing would have helped, but it's well worth overlooking.

Rating:
Summary: Fast-Paced, Non-Stop and Hilarious
Review: Jill, who talks about as hard as she drinks, is a part-time bookstore clerk who buys a signed first-edition of The Cruise of the Snark from a dwarf who seems to be in a mighty big hurry to take the proffered $25 and run.

That afternoon, the dwarf shows up again, with the Joke Man who very persuasively convinces Jill that she needs to give the book back. Only, she's already sold it for considerable profit.

What happens next is a fast-paced, non-stop hilariously horrible race to get the book and return it, hopefully staying alive throughout the whole adventure. And adventure it is--improbable, violent, and extremely funny.

Jill reminds me of a wise-cracking Film Noir detective. . . except for the fact that she says and does things that even Spade wouldn't! The writing is witty and hip but sometimes painfully fast. If you can make it through the first couple of pages without going into shock from the speed of it all, you'll love it too.

Rating:
Summary: Maltese Falcon meets Marx Brothers
Review: Like a Hole in the Head is that rare piece of fiction that you can't put down. I let 15 people read the first page and all of them wanted to borrow the book when I finished, and several said they were going to buy it that day. It's also one of those memorable books, like Catch-22 or an early Garrison Keillor, that made me laugh out loud and not be able to continue reading for a while. There are pages and pages of passages that I email and read to friends, even on the telephone, even long distance, particularly the Monster Truck episode. Banbury is a screaming original, even as she uses all the noir devices from crime fiction and pulp movies, which she should know since in real life she casts cheap movies. She'd better be set for interesting times and be good with handling money, because she has written a book that she can take to the bank and to Hollywood. It's only a matter of time before Quentin Tarantino or Robert Altman buys this book for the screen, if it hasn't already happened. The plot: Jill, a resilient yet emotionally broken recent college grad has landed a job in a seedy used bookstore, the Bitter Muse, after driving around aimlessly when her mother dies. From there, it's a purely original story, part slapstick mixed with crime (a truly terrifying kidnapping scene), sort of Maltese Falcon meets an updated Marx Brothers via a smuttier and sassier Dorothy Parker. Like a Hole in the Head is a first novel from a young Yale grad who works in Hollywood. Maybe that's why the book is so scripted and movie-ready. But it doesn't matter. Let's have the movie.

Rating:
Summary: I now have a hole in my head...
Review: My copy of this book is a hardback, and humorously enough, on the copywrite page in big capital letters, it says "FIRST EDITION." Ms. Banbury is no Jack London. As much as her book revolves around a first edition of one of his books, her skill has a long way to go before she even gets close to his.

I have to admit that this book was a waste of money for me. Thankfully I got it at a used bookstore. It's a very nice copy though, in "cherry" condition (as the protagonist called the London Book). Too bad I'll only get 25 cents for it when I sell it back.

The story starts out fairly well, revolving around the pessamistic and annoyingly cynical Jill, a woman who works (not very hard or well) at a used bookstore in LA. One day, a dwarf walks in and sells a signed first-edition Jack London edition of "The Cruise of the Snark" for 25 bucks. She then, like a bit of an idiot sells it to a former child movie-star named Tim for $400.

The dwarf comes back with a huge guy and demands it back... or else. Turns out that said book is especially valuable. And it all goes downhill from there as off the protagonist goes on a wild (and incredibly hard to follow) goose chase to try to get that stupid book back, being sarcastic, cynical and just plain annoying the whole time.

I won't even go into the wierd characters she interacts with, characters who act like something out of a bad mobster movie spoof. It probably figures, since all the bad guys were actors.

I couldn't stand the dialog either. In truth, the protagonist was such a cynical and sarcastic (not to mention incredibly self-centered) pain in the rear end that I felt almost no sympathy or any care of what happened to her. Of course, the commically stereotypical Marx brothers bad guys were even worse, so I was forced to root for the lesser of two evils. After a while, I said to heck with it and went to bed instead.

Over all, in my ranking of 1 to 5, this book gets a 2 (A generous score actually). To be fair though, I do prefer protagonists I can identify with. Jill was too much of a jerk to be likable.

Rating:
Summary: Hope she writes another like this
Review: Several reviews of Eversz's book, _Shooting Elvis,_ compared it unfavorably to Banbury's subsequent effort at noir hipness. I can't say I agree. Jill, a mid-twenties immigrant to LA from Connecticut, works part-time in a used book store, mostly so she can read a lot. And forget -- though you don't get a clue as to what she's trying to forget until far into the book. She buys a signed first edition of Jack London's _The Cruise of the Snark_ cheap from a kleptomaniac dwarf, thinking to make a killing on the resale -- and immediately everyone insists the book was stolen and wants it back. Who the rightful owner is, is the problem, but it soon ceases to matter, as Jill gets sucked into the struggle between several sets of violence-prone contenders. Along the way, Banbury has the chance to do a number on movie industry people (especially directors and B-movie actors), rare book dealers, and Angelinos generally. But, despite the author's sometimes tart way with a phrase, the narration wanders all over the lot. I became impatient with the book and had I accidentally left it in my doctor's waiting room when I was three-quarters of the way through it, I probably wouldn't have bothered to go back for it. In fact, the story and the characters don't really get interesting until the last fifty-odd pages . . . and even then, I had trouble accepting Jill's rather blas?? reaction to her treatment at the hands of Seth and his friend.

Rating:
Summary: Give her back her crayons.
Review: Someone needs to give Jen Banbury her crayons back, because she's no writer. Perhaps another hobby is more in order. This driveling mess of a book was remaindered in a dollar store, but I bought it based on the flyleaf description, hoping I'd found an undiscovered gem. Instead what I got was brainless, unstructured, dimwitted tripe that demonstrated that the author has absolutely no life experiences to draw on other than describing the losers she's obviously grown up with. Her main character, who may be named Jill but is enough of a compulsive liar that she might even lie about her own name to herself, is as unsympathetic as any character I've ever read. I found myself rooting for the bad guys when she was tied to a chair and being tortured. Unfortunately, there's no one else in the story to transfer your sympathy to. They're all losers, caught in a story so full of holes and wrapped so thoroughly in unbelievability that there's really no way out for any of them. Ms. Banbury, please don't ever write again. The remainder shelves are full enough as it is and that's bound to be where your next effort winds up . . . again.

Rating:
Summary: Like, a whole lot of fun.
Review: Strange to read so many negative reviews for a book I liked so much. I'm a classic noir fan, and it's good to see the genre turned upsidedown, inside out, and back again by a wisecracking female protagonist. The main character's/narrator's take on the "mean streets" of Los Angeles is, for this lifelong Angelena, hillariously true-to life, capturing everyday details that so many other authors fail to ever mention. Jill is a prickly protagonist with a past that more than justifies her hard-drinking, detatched outlook on life, and the speed-of-light narration is laugh-out-loud funny. Like Los Angeles, herself, this book is one of those things you either love or hate. I like blinding hot days, air so thick you can chew it, and books that leave a taste of bitter laughter in your mouth long after you've set them back on your shelf. LA is my kind of town, and Banbury is my kind of writer. I only wish she'd write more.

Rating:
Summary: Yes, But I liked it
Review: This was a strange story-- and I liked it. Naturally, I wanted to tell the main character "Stop you idiot, don't do that!" but she did it anyway, and that's what made me laugh out loud. Like a lot of what I've read, maybe this wasn't exactly fine literature, but still-- I enjoyed it because it was quirky.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Two stars is a generous rating. They are earned solely for the fact that this is a bibliomystery involving a used bookstore and a rare book, something that is too rare in and of itself. We can always use more bibliomysteries. I was excited to dig into a new one. Unfortunately this one is grating, annoying, and a waste of time.

It comes down to this: the protagonist, Jill, is completely unsympathetic. By the middle of the book, I didn't care what happened to her. The premise is that she's a slacker bookstore worker. Apparently the author thinks that fact alone should make us like the character. Had there been anything else of substance to the character or the story, it could have been fun and interesting. Instead the protagonist is just annoying, immature, makes stupid decisions, and doesn't learn a single thing or change in any way by the end of the book. She's not entertaining, not funny, not witty, not anything. There's a torture scene near the end of the book, but by that time I didn't care what happened to her. You would think this torture would make her snap out of her stupor but, no, she continues on her dull way.

The supporting characters are one-dimensional. There is far too much padding material in the book, lots of text that has no relation to the rest of the story or to any of the characters. I found myself thinking, "alright already, get back to the story. Tell us something relevant." There's not much book talk or discussion of rare books or bookstore operations, so if you're looking for that, you'll be disappointed. It's a shame, really, because I wanted to like the book, but even the most sympathetic reading of it leaves one disappointed. Let's hope the author matures as a writer.

If you're looking for a bibliomystery with lots of book talk, read John Dunning's "Booked To Die" or Samuel Hirsh Gottlieb's "Overbooked In Arizona." You won't be disappointed.