I didnt like it :) but ty girlyworms for uhhh expanding my literary palate!! . bonanza jellybean ily forever

i’ve tried to detail to people the premise of this book and simply can never (nor will i ever) do it justice. all i know for sure is that this is a fever dream book. it was my first tom robbins book so i’m really excited to read more of his stuff to get a better grasp on his writing style.

overall this book is just so fun to read. it’s definitely a little crass/shamelessly-detailed. there are also endless zingers in it - silly, profound, or usually both - and i’ve marked it up so much. i probably would’ve marked it up more if i hadn’t started it this summer during my bouts of reading time in canyons / on a white water raft where pens were few and far between. i don’t think i fully grasped what all was going on until the last third of the book, and i honestly may re-read the beginning again just because.

this book is one big willing suspension of disbelief x a complication of ideas and topics that just come so far out of left field you didn’t even realize left field went that far x fun and whimsical narration. many of the chapters don’t even directly narrate the plot but are just random asides that end up relating (or not, but can always be related in your mind) and i think that’s the best i can sum it up.

you should probably read it, or other tom robbins perhaps.

I hated this book. Hated it. HATED IT. I can't say that enough, sometimes it feels really good to hate something that deserves to be hated. I think Tom Robbins is a chump. I think it's pretty funny that he attempted to write a novel intended to be taken as liberating to women, but managed to come up with some of the weakest women characters I have ever read about. I hate his voice, and I hate his snarky little interjections. I felt like this was about listening to Tom Robbins' drone on and on about the "great" metaphysical observations he could make about the state of human relationships and the universe, and that got really old really fast. I thought maybe I was being hasty, because people really seem to love Tom Robbins, so I have him another chance with Villa Incognito. Fuck that, not happening, I can't stand him, and I feel like if I were to ever meet him in public it would take everything in my power not to punch him in his arrogant little face.

This is another book where I go, "Oh yeah, I read that." Back in the day our friends read it, then the wife read it, and finally after all that I finally read it. But by the time I finished it everyone had moved on to something else. (Probably a Rabbi David Small book.) I don't remember anything about Even Cowgirls Get The Blues except thinking it was a bit too weird. I gave it only two stars for not being memorable.

Wish there were more cowgirls and less orientalism… this makes for a good discussion about how a lot of postmodern art ultimately participates in the thing it is trying to satirize. Parts of it were definitely my kind of weird so I will be seeing what else Tom Robbins has to offer!

3.5
this is def a product of its time as seen in the language but wow. robbins is such a gorgeous writer, his language is amazing. i would give it 4 stars but i did skim read some parts i’m sorry. something so different to todays writing. so glad i’ve discovered him!

Remember "...if it gets sloppy, eat it over the sink."

Bow-wow-wow-yippy-kai-yay

Okay so overall I did like this book, but I am not giving it more then these two stars. You know why? Because I have a problem with a man that writes about lesbians who then interjects himself sexually into the story at the end and has the lesbians hook up with men. Fuck you Tom Robbins! You took a giant shit in the middle of perfectly good and delicious pie. You ruined it. Otherwise the story would have been awesome. I felt so cheated at the end. Another reason I don't like you is because back in the 70's you tried to pick up on my friends Mom in a bar and when she politely refused you told her you were looking for a woman with bigger tits anyway. A true story that really paints a picture of your true personality mysognist and sexist followed by asshole are the first few terms that come to mind when I think about that. I am really happy I bought my copy of your book used and urge anyone who does want to read this to do the same.

The worst. Took me months to finish. Pretentious AF.

2 Stars for Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (audiobook) by Tom Robbins read by Michael Nouri.
I’m kind of disappointed in this story. I just wish the author had tried to be a little less clever and made the the story more interesting. This just seems to be a waste of a great title.

A very well written, entertaining, zany, imaginative, intelligent, witty novel. The author pokes fun at society, including conformity, politics, bird lovers and the rich. I enjoyed the underdeveloped characters and the over the top plot!

Sissy Hanksaw is a beautiful small town girl from south Richmond, who has big thumbs. She hitch hikes lots - just for the love of travelling. She is a traveller with no fixed abode for twelve years before she marries a Mohawk Indian named Julian, who is a watercolour artist. Sissy ends up at the Rubber Rose ranch where a number of cowgirls live. Sissy has a relationship with an old Japanese hermit. Sissy also spends a lot of time with a psychiatrist named Dr. Robbins. Sissy’s thumbs get her into a lot of trouble!

Here are some examples of the author’s writing style:

‘This sentence is made of lead (and a sentence of lead gives a reader an entirely different sensation from one made of magnesium). This sentence is made of yak wool. This sentence is made of sunlight and plums. This sentence is made of ice. This sentence is made from the blood of the poet. This sentence as made in Japan. This sentence glows in the dark......This sentence suffered a split infinitive - and survived. If this sentence has been a snake you’d have bitten it. This sentence went to jail with Clifford Irving. This sentence went to Woodstock. And this little sentence went wee wee wee all the way home.’

‘There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for.’
‘Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need.’