And Now You Can Go

Rating:
Summary: Overrated
Review: The reviews make this sound much more absorbing. It was fine, but not stunning.

While the story of Vida's character Ellis being held up by a Riverside Park assailant is not an earth-shattering one (there are clearly much worse things that can happen), I have read countless books that take a single, mundane incident and weave a fantastic tale of results, ripples, and unintended consequences. "Atonement" by Ian McEwan is one example. But this novel is not on that level. I wish it had been better.

Rating:
Summary: Quirky story about a life-changing experience
Review: This book opens with the story of how El, a female graduate student in New York City, has a gun put to her head while she is taking her usual walk through the park. Her assailant does not ask for money; instead, he tells her that he does not wish to die alone. El does the only thing she can think of, which is to quote the poems that her mother made her memorize as a child. Her distraction tactic succeeds, and her assailant tells her "Look, you can run now. You can go and do whatever you want."

By Page 10, it's all over, and the 170 or so pages which follow detail El's response to this event. Her behavior is somewhat erractic: she avoids her boyfriend, wanders the city, ands heads to the Phillipines with her mother, all the while her life is defined by an incident which lasted only a matter of minutes. At times, El is unlikeable, seeming self-centered and driftless, but at other times, you can't help but to put yourself in her shoes and wonder if you'd react any differently. The end of the book brings some resolution to El's story; we're led to believe that she's going to be okay, and again, you can't help but to root for her.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing happens on that NY park bench...but wow!
Review: This is a debut novel by an author who's destined to go places. Being Dave Egger's wife won't hurt, but I don't think she needs him as a ladder.
Ellis, a 21yo woman in NY, is sort of mugged in a park - but nothing really happens except that she scares him off by quoting poetry. Afterward, however, she carries on with her life acting like she's got PTS with the surreal, crazy-making behavior of someone who's been victimized, including quite a string of inappropriate men. She ricochets to the Philippines to - get this! - help doctors with eye surgery for poor people.
Only 200 pages long, Vida packs her book with lean, mean, and wonderful prose. At the end, you may find yourself wishing, as I did, that she'd gone on for another 200 pages.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommend
Review: This is a good book. It's very companionable, and the writing is straightforward and elegant both. I like it a lot.

Rating:
Summary: Vida Cafe Vendela Mocha With Skim (Decaf)
Review: This is the worst novel I have ever read. It is laughingly bad, which almost makes it good. Nothing happens in it, save for a holdup. An not even a good holdup. Jsut a run-of-the-mill holdup.

Obviously, if you sleep with you-know-who, not only do you get a book published, but you get a literary magazine which helps intimidate the usual, useful idiots into giving good reviews. But the critics' lies can only go so far against Reality.

And so far, all the pomo indsiders have failed at creating characters bigger than themselves. Instead they have created caricatures of themselves.

Eternity is on truth's side, as thus as time goes by, the hypesters shall suffer in proportion to all they hype. This book will be forgotten. Don't waste your money on Knopf's vanity projects.

Rating:
Summary: Vida Cafe Vendela Mocha With Skim (Decaf)
Review: This is the worst novel I have ever read. It is laughingly bad, which almost makes it good. Nothing happens in it, save for a holdup. And not even a good holdup. Jsut a run-of-the-mill holdup.

Obviously, if you sleep with you-know-who, not only do you get a book published, but you get a literary magazine which helps intimidate the usual, useful idiots into giving good reviews. But the critics' lies can only go so far against Reality.

And so far, all the pomo indsiders have failed at creating characters bigger than themselves. Instead they have created caricatures of themselves.

Eternity is on truth's side, as thus as time goes by, the hypesters shall suffer in proportion to all they hype. This book will be forgotten. Don't waste your money on Knopf's vanity projects.

Rating:
Summary: extremely witty, well-paced novel lives up to the hype!
Review: Unlike some close-minded readers, I found the premise of basing an entire novel around one incident fascinating and was hooked after the first page. However, it was El's dry wit and sharp, detailed observations that I quickly found I could laugh out loud at and even identify with. The often sarcastic and self-deprecating tone kept me chuckling, even at seemingly serious, inappropriate moments. Unexpected moments like that are what make a story truly stand out to me. This is a terrific first novel that keeps up a swift, satisfying pace, which kept me up, finishing the book late in the night.

I recommend this highly to those who are open to examining a potentially harrowing incident from a fresh, and often very witty, perspective.

Rating:
Summary: A novel that gets under your skin
Review: Vendela Vida's debut novel grabs you with the first sentence and doesn't let you go. The writing is unadorned and fast -- every word seems perfectly chosen. And the heroine is at turns charming, maddening, little-girl vulnerable, and old woman-wise. "And Now You Can Go" gets under your skin and stays there, long after you've turned the last page.

Rating:
Summary: Possibly the least artistic novel I've read in three years
Review: Vida's first novel reads like a drawn-out workshop exercise. One can almost imagine a professor telling her, "Have one of your characters held up at gun point and see where it goes."

Unfortunately it doesn't go anywhere, other than for an aimless stroll through the extremely shallow, bland psyche of our dimwitted narrator. There is no depth here--the characters are flat, the potential emotional complexity engendered by this sort of traumatic event is basically ignored, and the first-person, present tense narration gives the book all the heft of an overwrought teenager's diary.

On the plus side, the book is so threadbare, provokes so little introspection or contemplation, that one can read it and cast it aside in a couple of hours--though it did pain me to place it back on the shelf between Updike and Voltaire.

Spend your time and money elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Crazy World
Review: What do you do with yourself when something so terrifically frightening engages you & then walks away as if nothing happened? Would you go a bit kooky? Ellis does.

But, perhaps Vendela Vida lets Ellis get a bit too whacked out. A man points a gun at Ellis in the park, she talks him out of hurting her, & then every nutball in her universe, past, present & future begins clammoring the walls around her.

Her roommate writes poems about taking out the garbage, Ellis has sex with some questionable guys, she goes home to visit her strange (kind of unbelievable) family, she travels to the Phillipine's, her doorman is a drunk, she hides in cabinets, she cuts her hair into a mullet... it goes on & on & on- it's as if the author was afraid that if she didn't use all of her good ideas in this slim volume, they might fade away forever.

Although at times I was slightly aghast at the world Ellis inhabits, I had to admire the quirky prose & the author's ability to have fun with the page.

Be prepared to suspend your disbelief & enjoy!