You know how you shouldn't judge a book by its cover? the same is true about its title. I liked the title of the book. Thought I would check it out. Once I got started, I couldn't help but keep reading, simply because it was like watching a train wreck. You want to look away but you can't. How that much, despair, sadness and complete craziness could happen in one town was difficult to believe. I finished the book and will not be recommending it to anyone else. There was nothing to hang your hat on except the impending cluster from someone else in town.

One of my all time favorite books as well as author!

I couldn't finish this book. The characters & their problems were a chore & not engaging enough to hang in there for. I didn't even want to look at this book after I gave up & gave it away.

this is a long ass book. i traded a David Sedaris book that i had just finished for this one at a youth hostel while i was traveling. if i wasn't on an island in a foreign country, i probably would have held out for something better, but options (on everything) were limited. amazingly, i got through 'Songs' and didn't feel like it was a waste of my vacation time. there are over 2 dozen characters and many subplots to keep up on, so that got a bit confusing at times. some of the subplots probably could have been left out, but it was also fun to see how many of the stories eventually connected to one another. although, this book starts off slow, i did become quite engrossed in several of the dramas that take place in the two plus lbs of pages.