Rating: 
Summary: How far would you go?
Review: How far would you go to pursue a dream and how fair is it to drag your children with you? That is the basic, bottom line of this book. Parents deal with this all the time without even thinking about it.Weird, yes. Disturbing, yes. But can you see beyond that? If you can, you will remember this book for the rest of your life.
Rating: 
Summary: A Study for the Bold
Review: I haven't actually finished this book, but this is my second attempt. My first, when I was 16, was shadowed by a sense of wrongness, as I'm sure many people have experienced. I still pale at some of the things that happen. But my cringe is the result, now, of the feelings of disgust that swim around this novel, not for the characters or what happens. To explain why, I took a class last semester about the history of carnival and sideshow and more importantly the people considered freakish enough to be a part of them. Instead of being turned off by the characters, bizarre as they may be, it is the reaction of the "norms" that make me want to cry. Hate is obvious in this book, and it is the hate which we should see in the words and learn from Dunn's writing that we do not want to be the ones to hate "others". Its a difficult book with a bold lesson for those ready to face it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great writing, original story
Review: So many people have weighed in on this book, there's not much I can add, except that the writing is great -- fresh, sharp, with not a cliche in sight, and the story is totally original. That counts for a lot, especially because I had just finished Empire Falls, which has a boring, predictable plot and totally mundane writing. Geek Love has a lot of over-the-top grossness and sometimes I couldn't stand to even look at it. But, unlike so many books where you know what's going to happen, I kept reading because I wanted to find out the next plot turn. Also, I think it's an interesting commentary on a couple of aspects of family: the Binewski parents do things to their children that are wrong and evil (isolate them from the world, manipulate them, teach them that family comes before anything else) -- things that happen in families in the real world; the resulting evil is the family's comeuppance. Not for everyone, but still an excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: Love it or hate it, you'll always remember it.
Review: This is my favorite book of all time. It is not a book for the easily offended or easily sickened, as is apparent from other reviewers here. This book pushes limits. However, even those that don't like it won't forget this book. It has a very powerful message that really causes the reader to think about things in a new light. The characters are the most realistic characters I've ever seen written despite the fact of their outlandish appearances.
If you are sick of the same old stories and want some new ideas to ponder, pick this book up!
Rating:
Summary: WOW!!! Could not put this book down!
Review: I read this interesting,compelling,detailed and fantastic novel one year ago while I was sick in bed with the flu. I could not put it down. It is the most unique stories that I have ever read. As a book-lover, this rates as one of my all time favorites. It is not for the faint-hearted however, as it is gruesome and very sad throughout. For all the people who rated it low.. it is fiction, remember?! I loaned this book out to a friend who has never returned it. I am ordering another copy, because I have to have it to read again this year!
Rating:
Summary: beautiful story of family....if not twisted story of family
Review: I thought that this book was compelling. It is the most creative, clever, twisted, pot-boiler I've ever read. It's one delicious campfire ghost story that lasts the entire weekend. I have read it over and over and over and over again. Do yourself a favor and BUY THIS BOOK! It changed me...definitely in my top 5 books ever!
Rating:
Summary: One of a kind! Don't Miss This Wonderful Experience!
Review: Without giving away any of the amazing and wacked-out narrative, suffice it to say that what Dunn has tried to do is to remind us that it is a far more interesting world when we eschew the conventional and embrace all that's different. It is not a coincidence that it's my wife who turned me on to the book -- both she and Katherine Dunn aren't from Kansas any more -- which tells you all you need to know about the desperate need some people have to break away from what they perceive as their stifling mid-America home and break through the looking glass. (Am I mixing metaphors -- Kansas/Oz and Alice in Wonderland?). But unlike my beautiful wife, Dunn freely admits in the afterword that she was a blue collar "New World Mongrel", an ugly duckling nicknamed "Froggie" or "Toad", as well as an odd duck from a family of misfits in a small Kansas town. She spent time behind bars for passing bad checks, and was the invisible "story lady" of the air on a Portland radio station, reading bizarre tales by Lewis Carroll, Harlan Ellison and Franz Kafka. She clearly paid big-time dues. This book is not for the faint of heart, or for the queasy. It's hard to stomach, and intentionally so. If Kafka's demons were of the mind, Dunn's are of the body. She pushes definitions of physical normalcy and weirdness to absolute extemes, daring you to come along for the uncomfortable yet fascinating ride. It's also a book written in 1983 by a graduate of the counterculture-ish Reed College in Oregon, so some think it embraces the 60s drug culture. But not so. Dunn disliked the hippies because they were conformists in their own way. Her topsy-turvy world has the ring of loneliness and truth, probably because she's not ashamed to admit that there's a lot of her in it. It's a Ripley's Believe it or Not that actually becomes believable because Dunn overcomes you with humor, empathy and horror all at once. Quite a journey, and very worth it if you can bear it. I rate it 5 stars not because it's flawless -- it isn't -- but because Dunn takes such a huge risk and pulls it off. Two other quick Amazon recommendations -- recent lesser-known novels that I enjoyed -- WILL@epicqwest.com by Tom Grimes, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez
Rating: 
Summary: Disturbing
Review: Geek Love is disturbing, sickening and repulsive. It is the only book I recall making me feel ill and I read voraciously. I couldn't get past the first few chapters. I regret purchasing the book and would give it away but don't think that I should inflict it on others.
Rating:
Summary: Welcome to the Sideshow
Review: Become a member of the darkest, seediest sideshow family of all times.
The couple in this story breed freaks like others might breed dogs.
Truly facinating, gritty and dark. A unique book you will remember for the rest of your life.
Rating:
Summary: This is definitly geek love...
Review: I loved this book. It is full of well developed characters and a crazy plot. If you love fiction that is different from the norm you will love it as well. It is definitly not for everyone. But, once you get into it the strangeness of it all, you begin to relate to the characters.
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