Rating: 
Summary: Poorly written
Review: Mr Land does an awful job of portraying a fine university and greek system. He represents only a fraction of unhappy members of the greek system. As member if the Clemson greek system for five years I was one of thousands of members who did not have the same feelings as Land.
Rating:
Summary: Familiar
Review: I found the subject of this book familiar and interesting, but Land's staccato styled memoir often felt like reading a child's diary. There is little variation in tone, punctuation, or enthusiasm.If you are familiar with Clemson or Clemson fraternites, I recommend reading this book. It did bring back a sense of nostalgia, and at times I found myself laughing when I think his intent was for the reader to be angry? Being familiar with Clemson, Kappa Sig, characters, and other aspects of Land's book I question much of the picture he has painted. But I guess in fiction there is truth.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must Read - The Truth Is Told!
Review: A book like this doesn't come along to often. I'm sure after reading this book you'll either love it or hate it - no in-between. I love it. Land draws a parallelism between his horrific abduction and beating by the hands of the "breath" and the "smile" as a young college student to the hazing he suffers as a pledge - pledges are called "Goats" - in the Kappa Sig fratenity at Clemson University. What he describes is alarming. Land questions why he is putting himself through the ridicule and demeaning hazing rituals just to be accepted. Land opens your eyes to this process and makes you really question whether fraternal hazing is really different from torture, kidnapping, rape, etc. Unfortunately, college hazing (frats, sororities, athletic, etc.) is an ingrained, standard rite of passage of our collective college experience, and too often society defends this process. Beware of the bad reviews...Those who who hate this book are biased and are defending this rite of passage. Read the truth and hang on for the ride. I feel for Land and I appreciate the courage he displayed in writing this book. This book should be a required reading for all college freshmen.
Rating:
Summary: Loser, Loser, Loser!
Review: It goes without saying that the Greek System at Universities has been traditionally a source of strength and brotherhood for the majority. There remains for most, long after graduation, a bond with fellow brothers that is priceless.
It is also true that hazing does go on in Fraternities like Kappa Sig and anyone with a drivers liscence and a grade school education knows this is true. To look the other way and protest loudly that certain things never happened is a typical knee-jerk reaction. One would hope that groups like Kappa Sig would take the time to examine themselves and see what they might learn from this event.
The truth is, fraternities have the responsibility to know their pledges...what they have been through...where they have come from. Mr. Land and his brother were involved with Kappa Sig and there are many available to attest to this truth. That the hazing which some brothers had no problem with was difficult for Mr. Land does not mean that he is somehow weak or emotionally disturbed. It does mean that in this instance Kappa Sig had no clue of the violence Mr. Land had already suffered when they inflicted their own brand of good-ole-boy mayhem.
Mr. Land has written a brave and honest book. The brothers of Kappa Sig flatter themselves to think it is all about them. The book is a story, a true story, that Kappa Sig is one small part of. I for one would reccomend this book to all moms and dads with male offspring. It is powerful!
It is indeed encouraging to know that many of the brothers of Kappa Sig would actually pick up a book and read it all the way through. Now....if we can only get them and the writer of " Liar, Liar, Liar" to THINK!
This was an awesome book....and sadly, it is all true where Kappa Sig is concerned.
Rating: 
Summary: A Kappa Sigma Responds
Review: I read this book because it was about my fraternity and speaking simply on the plot, it was entertaining though really dark. But having gone through a pledge semester myself, I can't see anything like what he describes actually happening. I mean if things were really that terrible, why did anyone put up with it, especially at Clemson? I am not doubting that hazing probably happened back then, but I think he is exaggerating for shock value. What I got out of this was a guy who had one bad experience, which although traumatic, he has blamed for everything else bad that's happened in his life. He was a loser who couldn't stop whining around to get on with it and that's why Kappa Sigma, or any social organization, wasn't right for him. This guy is trying to make a quick buck off a big named national fraternity. I am higly skeptical of the whole thing, right down to whether he pledged at all. To Kappa Sig potentials out there, don't let this book influence you one way or another. To all my bros, AEKDB.
Rating:
Summary: Up all night reading!
Review: Picked this up today, and once I started reading, I honestly couldn't stop for dinner, or to walk my dog (poor poor dog!) Brad Land has done something incredible, artful, current, meaningful, painfully immature and scarily open. This book is completely unearthly and totally earthy, so much so as to be dirty. GOAT is immediate and momentary and frightening and searching and visceral and at times, poetic. I swear, I took a deep breath at the bottom of the first page... and realized on page 58 I was still holding my breath. I hope someone doesn't turn GOAT into a movie and screw up the fox. I loved that fox. I SO want that fox to be real!
Rating:
Summary: A New Genre Begins Here
Review: Brad Land's impressive debut book GOAT solidifies his place among the best new authors this or any country has to offer. His style is reminiscent of Joyce, thematically he is the next Sallinger. This book is shockingly real as well as brutally honest. Mr. Land's wry sense of humor and his fluid narrative combine to form the ultimate coming of age memoir. The brutal nature of southern fraternity life is exposed in a frank and truthful nature. The theme of violence is as inescapable in this work as it is in real life. The fact is that violence can be inflicted by anyone, regardless of socioeconomic status, class, gender or race. Street violence and violence inflicted by those in the name of brotherhood as not as far apart as they appear(or we would like them to appear). The negative reviews from some former frat members are laughable as well as baseless. For them, this book seems to hit a little too close to home(or the frat house). There is no limit to the immense potential of what will be a lengthy literary career for Mr. Land. His debut will no doubt garner him the respect a talented writer deserves.
Rating: 
Summary: Hazing Terror
Review: It's no secrets; the things pledges go through during their hazing period to enter the fraternity of their choice is morally wrong. The physical and intellectual harm that is inflicted on the young recruits shouldn't be allowed (and tradition shouldn't be an excuse). Reading Brad Land's Goat is like being one of those pledges, suffering through days and days of anguish and harm. And for what? To be part of a fraternity for a year or two? Land wrote his fictionalized memoir in the first person and present tense, which often creates unease in the reader. Because you are right there with Land as he tries to please his brothers in order to gain a place in the fraternity. But the fact that Land was also brutally beaten only a couple of years before the hazing begun only makes this tale scarier; the amount of fear and torment this man is making himself suffer through never ceased to amaze me. The past is always there haunting him, and now the present also become a living nightmare. In a way, Land is trying to amend for the past by pledging to this fraternity. His younger brother, who is now part of the fraternity he's pledging to , does little to ease Land's initiation. As a matter of fact, his brother often appears cold and and maybe even a bit lifeless. We never really know what drives Land to go through the whole process. Often terrifying and full of anguish, this small memoir won't leave anyone feeling indifferent in the end. A very powerful read.
Rating:
Summary: this book blew my mind
Review: This book breaks all the rules. It carves a new path. Its important not to read Goat as an expose (although it does show the darker side of fraternity life) -- its main strength is that it reads like a fine novel, like early Hemingway or J.D. Salinger. The form and style are revolutionary -- far better than James Frey and some other edgy memoirs out there now. By writing in present tense, Brad has made himself into a "character" who experiences brutal harms at the hands of others. And we feel like we are there. There is no introduction to this book, no epilogue. Its his story. Sometimes I got so caught up in the narrative that I had to stop myself and slow down and realize --no, this really f**ckin happened!I'm saddened by the other reviewers who seem to be using this page as a platform to exhault fraternity life. Have they even read the book? Dudes, its not about you! This book only tells one small story. A story about making mistakes, about bad things that happen or could happen to all of us at the hands of strangers or "friends", about the love between brothers. Its beatuiful and heartbreaking and true. I can't wait to see what this writer turns out next.
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: Brad Land has made a powerful book. I want to read it again, to savor it more slowly. The narrative pull is so strong that the first read is fast. But even so, what I am most struck by is the craftsmanship. What is amazing is the apparent transparency and immediacy of the voice; yet the text is actually complexly layered. Land has somehow managed to let the damaged boy he was tell the story he couldn't have told then; so the man, the writer, is part of the story without ever intruding upon it. Indeed, that presence is, I think, a crucial part of what makes the narrative ultimately bearable in the end -- because the story couldn't have been told unless the teller survives and transcends. I suspect that a naive reader would come away with the impression that the words just came white hot and unmediated straight onto the page, but there is clearly so very much hard work that has gone into achieving that effect and impact.
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