Rating: 
Summary: Oh well.
Review: I am a college student who had to read this book for an contemporary American literature class. Geek Love is a very likeable book; Dunn features fascinating characters, intriguing dialogue, and events that will make you stop and think. The problem is this: the book is just not fun to read. This book is written for psuedo-intellectuals who have lots of time on their hands. Since I don't belong to this group, I found the book as exhiliarating as throwing myself at a wall of concrete. No, I never finished the book (I think I was at page 150 when the quiz hit), but it wasn't a disappointment to hear all the characters die at the end. Oh well. Bring on the next book.
Rating: 
Summary: Strange but in a moving way...
Review: This book disoriented me while I was reading it, because it's one of those novels that gets under your skin. You know, you look up from reading and almost expect to see the characters standing in front of you. You have dreams which feature the characters or landscapes of the story. You think about reading it when you're doing something else.That feeling in Dunn's novel is due largely to her matter-of-fact treatment of her fantastical circus family. There is a solidity to these genetic abnormanlities (to say the least!) that is manifested through their behavior and their interactions with others. In the topsy-turvy, insulated world of this family circus, Arturo, a fish-boy, can become a power player, and it is no big deal. The solid, even treatment of the characters is just one of the strengths of this novel. Interesting in every way, it chronicles the life of a freaskish protagonist who laments her lack of "specialness" -- she just isn't weird enough, and feels a whole different kind of body image angst. The books moves at a nice pace through her childhood and into her questioning teen years, and she struggles with the normal things -- only she is very different herself. The book can be a bit graphic to the particularly imaginative, but in a really weird, poignant way, and you have already become so invested in the personalities that it seems necessary. It can be harsh and make you uncomfortable, but in a way which is absolutely enchanting. As you read, you will find yourself surprised...by the funny, warm narrative, as well as by the fact that you will accept the utter strangeness as normal by the time you're 30 pages into it. This book is excellent...it's a fairy tale with character development, and it's sad and funny at the same time. A must-read for misfits and wanna-be rebels of all kinds.
Rating:
Summary: You will never forget reading this book
Review: This book will never leave you. It is more than thought-provoking; it is invasive, but you're happy for the invasion. I still sometimes dream about the characters (I last read it about two years ago). The person in my life with whom I'm most angry now is the person who still hasn't returned this book. And that's the only reason I'm angry. Read this book. You won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: A M A Z I N G!
Review: Wow. Get this book now. One of the best books I've ever read! Creepy & cool!
Rating: 
Summary: I hope...
Review: How surprised was I to hear some book called Geek Love(?) come so highly recommended, and who'd of ever thought I'd read it?... Then find me thinking, "I'm not finding this as disturbing or shocking as it seems set up to be," enthralled though I am... Apart from it's subject matter GL seemed familiar, similar to other works in several ways: writing style, theme, writer's trickery. Comparisons come easy and are valid. Yet this work stands, for me, very much on it's own, and the reading experience suggests it's greater than the sum of it's parts. Maybe it was a philosophy that hooked me (and then came Fight Club... ), or just some magic that I'm not sharp enough to identify. Eventually I discovered my jaw extended, telling me I could be surprised, that I wasn't immune. Oftentimes it was the complete, complex psychologies that impressed me most, and the work suffered when such details were half-baked. In Geek Love's world we may need to suspend much disbelief, but overall I found Dunn's logic surprisingly intricate. Her storytelling I found very effective, ever captivating, pulling me forward, forward, forward, while her "lyric" prose was there entertaining me throughout. Though I wanted at times to take a break (just to breathe, shake off the obsession,and assess: do I really like this book so incredibly much? do I LOVE this book??), I honestly felt rather powerless to slow down. I was also feeling uncharacteristically co-dependent: wanting everybody to read this book, at least talk to me about it, or ask questions, just please be interested too! please? I'll keep my criticisms from contaminating others' experience, but even halfway through, when I was able too pull myself away and relax, I found myself thinking about the book often and eager to spend time reading. Closing the book I may have lost some of my earlier enthusiasm, yet... find me turning back to that most marvelous of beginnings... I am satisfied, and for a time, however brief, I've awakened a bit more love, certainly compassion, for all you individual strangers that I pass out there on the streets of the real (flesh and blood) world. somethings persist: I hope everybody reads this book.
Rating:
Summary: The most cruelly beautiful book I have ever read.
Review: Geek Love is a book which affirms the idea that everybody is both imperfect and special. The insights of astonishing vulnerability displayed by both Miss Lick (possibly the best chapter title ever "Miss Lick's home flicks"!) and Arturo display that the mask which we present to other people is a thin veneer covering our insecurities. By this standard we are all emotional freaks, something which is much more important and scary than any physical "deformity". Although the narrative style can appear artificial at times this is more than made up for by the sheer pathos of the perfectly constructed characters and the use of simile and metaphor- "inchy little lines like the hesitation cuts on a suicide's wrists." If you have a spare couple of quid BUY THIS BOOK!
Rating:
Summary: When does the movie come out?!
Review: This book was amazing! What else is there to say
Rating: 
Summary: Utter Nonsense
Review: This book is guilty of many things - but by far the most heinous of its crimes is an all-pervasive dullness. The Yawn factor was almost crippling - the attempts to shock come so frequently as to be rendered impotent. The premise sounded ingenious on the dust jacket but instead we are offered an half-baked immature vision for kids who don't get out enough. Avoid.
Rating:
Summary: The compelling fascination of teratology
Review: Dunn's compelling story is her attempt to suss out the ages-old human fascination with teratological examples from humanity's more motely ranks. Whether she does more than point out that morbid fascination on the parts of the voyeurs is up to the reader, but what she fully succeeds at is showing with sympathy, humanity, and good humor the feelings, desires, ambitions, and humanity of the freaks. Geek Love shows us a most important truth, which is that humanity comes in many forms, and monsters sometimes are the most human appearing of creatures.
Rating:
Summary: A book you can't put down...
Review: I can count on one hand, the number of times a book has moved me and thus changed my life. "Geek Love" is one of them. Katherine Dunn has an imagination I'd give my right arm for, she simply blew me away.
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