This is a great book. I think it's going to be the best thing that comes out of "my generation" (Reagan Babies, Gen Y, whatever) in terms of zeitgeist, literary quality, youthfulness, and accessibility.

Wallace is a genius, and an immortal in my book. He's the heir to Melville in my mind. But that's not demotic enough, I fear.

Eggers is every bit as quality, but you don't have to be a brainiac to get whats valuable from it, and that sets it apart.

I hate it when people say "such a GOOD STORY" about a book they enjoyed...I mean, Christ, what did you expect it to be? But here that's about all one can say about it without getting bogged down in nuts and bolts.

Eggers rips this tale of furious grief and everyday living in a way that makes people I know feel like they could probably have written like that, if they'd had the time or the inclination or whatever.

That's the novel of the generation, kids! Torn from our collective mindsets, insecurities, hangups, jokes, fears, and desires.

I haven't read anything else by him, nor do I particularly want to. I don't think anything else he's done is going to live up to this one's effect- my fault, I suppose.

Openhearted, endearing, honest, funny, sweet, and true.

Welcome to rest of your life!

I re-read this book recently because I couldn't believe it was really as good as I remembered it being. But honestly, it totally was.

Heartbreaking? Check.
Staggering? At times.
Genius? Debatable.

3 stars. I liked it a lot more on a second reading, years after the first, as a man now older and—dare I say?—wiser (a little bit, at least). As books go, it's not, like, phenomenal literature or anything but it is entertaining in a few spots and emotive in a few more. Eggers has a distinct voice, a heavy hyperbolic Gen X self-aware and self-absorbed style, very much a love-it-or-leave-it deal:

We walk the halls and the playground, and we are taller, we radiate. We are orphans. As orphans, we are celebrities...We are the bright new stars born of a screaming black hole, the nascent suns burst from the darkness, from the grasping void of space that folds and swallows—a darkness that would devour anyone not as strong as we. We are oddities, sideshows, talk show subjects. We capture everyone's attention. (96)

In between fits of insufferable-seeming self-adulation (one hopes it's exaggerated for effect!) and neurotic self-loathing, Eggers raises a few questions pertinent to his time: what is the nature of fame? What is the proper aim of youth? What from our past is worth keeping and what can, or even must, be jettisoned? And if everybody faces personal tragedy, does that make my own any more or less significant?

I would never recommend this book to anyone

5/5 stars