I can't really decide what to rate this book. It wasn't awful. In the first few pages I was immediately intrigued since I had never read Tom Robbins and was unfamiliar with his unique and arguably excessive prose style. I was informed before reading this that the main character is unlikable. Generally, I enjoy unlikable protagonists --and I have no issues with the character Gwen as far as her simply being morally bereft-- but it felt like Robbins just set up this horrible character for him to philosophize profusely all over her chest as the character Larry Diamond. I wonder if the men reading this have any idea how poorly Gwen is written as a female character? Some parts were difficult to get through. I couldn't stand Larry Diamond calling her "pussy fondue" and her blushing (as if every girl secretly wants to be called horrible nicknames) and her later parroting his philosophy about charity harming the less fortunate. This was, perhaps just to me, the least likeable and most inexcusable part of Gwen's characterization-- that she was a prude who needed to be fucked by the *right* man in order to discover her sexuality and she was amoral because she hadn't yet been lectured sternly enough by Uncle Larry. I feel that, instead of this being satirized as a harmful and idiotic trope, the author genuinely used her increase in libido in an attempt to foreshadow personal growth. In the end, the book stops short of any significant personal growth in Gwen and, in my interpretation, sort of ends on a deterministic note that seems to imply Gwen is going to be enlightened whether she wants to or not.

It was interesting, but I'm not going to read it again or probably even recommend it to anyone.

Certainly more about the journey than the destination, as we the reader are taken on a journey through cosmic incredulity, sexual exploration, moral ambiguity, the questioning of our reality in only ways that Robbins can. Enjoyable even though some of Robbins assertions of the nature of human progress and achievement are inadequate, antiquated, noticeably pre-Me Too and BLM. I think I enjoy Robbins the most when he creates his own similes/metaphor/analogies; it is like a caterpillar attending Easter Vigil or a Brownie served with a warm Scotch in a carved clown nose.

Good lord! Robbins at it again with a perverse story making me cackle and frown and look all confused with the intake of new knowledge and bizarre sex scenes. I want to live in his universe of absurdity and knowledge and amphibian aliens.

"ΜΙΣΟΚΟΙΜΙΣΜΕΝΟΙ ΣΤΙΣ ΒΡΑΤΡΑΧΟΠΙΤΖΑΜΕΣ ΜΑΣ"

ΤΑ ΕΧΩ ΠΕΙ ΓΙΑ ΤΟΝ ΡΟΜΠΙΝΣ!
ΠΟΣΕΣ ΦΟΡΕΣ ΝΑ ΤΑ ΠΩ;

Ο ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΜΟΝΑΔΙΚΟΣ!
ΜΕΤΡ ΤΟΥ ΕΙΔΟΥΣ ΤΟΥ.

ΑΣΤΕΙΡΕΥΤΟ ΤΑΛΕΝΤΟ!

ΕΧΕΙ ΤΗΝ ΙΚΑΝΟΤΗΤΑ ΝΑ ΣΥΝΔΥΑΖΕΙ
ΠΡΟΣΩΠΑ, ΙΔΙΟΤΗΤΕΣ Κ ΠΛΑΣΜΑΤΑ ΠΟΥ ΔΕΝ ΤΑΙΡΙΑΖΟΥΝ ΜΕΤΑΞΥ ΤΟΥΣ ΚΑΙ ΔΕΝ ΕΧΟΥ
ΛΟΓΙΚΗ ΣΧΕΣΗ.
Η ΣΥΣΧΕΤΙΣΗ ΤΟΥΣ ΦΑΙΝΕΤΑΙ ΑΛΛΟΚΟΤΗ.
ΟΜΩΣ, ΔΙΑ ΜΑΓΕΙΑΣ Ή ΚΑΛΥΤΕΡΑ
ΧΑΡΗ ΣΤΗΝ ΠΕΝΑ Κ ΤΗΝ ΕΥΦΥΪΑ
ΤΟΥ ΡΟΜΠΙΝΣ ΟΛΑ ΑΥΤΑ ΚΑΤΑΛΗΓΟΥΝ,
ΜΕΣΩ Κ ΤΗΣ ΕΡΕΥΝΑΣ, ΣΕ ΜΙΑ ΦΥΣΙΟΛΟΓΙΚΗ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΑ ΜΕ ΑΡΧΗ- ΜΕΣΗ- ΤΕΛΟΣ ΣΥΝΘΕΤΟΝΤΑΣ ΕΝΑ ΟΜΟΡΦΟ ΤΑΞΙΔΙ!

ΡΟΜΠΙΝΣ, ΕΙΣΑΙ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΣ ΜΑΣΤΟΡΑΣ!

“Disaster’s always best when it’s on a grand scale.”

… and the scale certainly is grand in Tom Robbins’ rollicking riot of a novel. It opens with the beginning of a disastrous three-day weekend for one Gwendolyn Mati, a lovingly unlikable stockbroker whose ambitions are sky high and whose perceptions seem hopelessly shallow. It is the night before Good Friday and there has been a disastrous plunge in the stock market that has the whole economy screaming disaster, and Gwen finds herself facing termination on Monday morning thanks to some shady ethics she exercised in her client’s portfolios that have been brought to light by the crash. Her once-promising boyfriend, Belford, is annoying her to no end after developing an unhealthy dose of Christian guilt that is compelling him to leave his promising real estate career for (gasp!) social work. Gwen desperately needs to find a way to keep her job before Monday morning, but she can’t seem to get a seemingly sleazy former stockbroker named Larry Diamond off her mind. And things only get worse the following day, when Belford’s born-again pet monkey escapes and Gwen’s best friend, a 300 pound psychic named Q-Jo, vanishes. All this happens in the first hundred pages of “Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas,” and the Robbins roller coaster has only just begun. There’s still a curious cancer treatment, a bunch of overly rich and rowdy teenagers, celestial interference, a sex offender, disappearing frogs, a transfixing Van Gogh sketch, aliens, and more to come.

“Half Asleep” is at its riotous best in its first half, when Robbins gives free reign to his limitless imagination, and the result is a philosophical-comedy mind-warp that could give Vonnegut’s masterful “Breakfast of Champions” a run for its money … until the second half of the novel devolves into a talky jumble of rambling philosophical dialogue that does more to annoy the reader than to enlighten him. I like what Robbins is saying underneath it all (that we need to chill out, think about how we define our lives, and focus on what really matters instead of allowing money and ambition steer us off course), but he weakens his argument by muddling it with random references to alien mushroom spores, enemas, et al. His specious asides confound more than anything else, and make you long for the carefree opening salvo that had said so much more without trying nearly as hard. The ending is also truly disappointing because it is all too sudden and leaves you with too many questions.

This was my first Robbins novel, and despite its flaws I did enjoy it. I am particularly impressed by his unique descriptive style: instead of telling us that someone has the chills he writes that “ice cubes clink against the swizzle stick of your spine.” Nice touch, Mr. Robbins. I look forward to exploring the rest of his canon in the future. I just hope that there’s more madcap glee than abstruse philosophy.

Grade: B-

I've clearly moved on from the place and time when I used to love Tom Robbins. Found it hard to get into and then gave up!!

Wow, I did not like this book.

Though I wouldn't necessarily say that this was my favorite  Tom Robbins read, I keep returning to it. There is something very charming about the prose, something very sucker-punch about our naive protagonist, something very engaging about the very short time-frame over which the tale plays out. It's a fun read and typical of Robbins in as much as he's trying to turn some taken-for-granted beliefs and turn them upside down; but this one is more environmental than it is religious or spiritual in its ... well, in its nature.

In case you didn't pick up on it, my "Full Disclosure" shelf is reserved for those books I find embarrassing to post about - for one reason or another. However, if I'm going to make the jump to share what I've read over the past years, I figure I may as well be honest.

This was actually my favorite of the "Tom Robbins" phase. Now, I hate him. It's always the same fucking story with this guy: down-and-out lady meets mystery man who imparts wisdom, solves problems, and then does her - in very explicit love scenes. Detailed sex and mystical universe shit boggles the mind when you're fifteen - but at this point? Come on; let's get serious.

I just don't know about this book. It was funny at times, and had occasional bits of quirky Vonnegutian wisdom, but mainly it seemed mean-spirited. Like it was written in second-person with a basically unlikeable protagonist, so reading it made me feel unliked. Is Tom Robbins trying to test my empathy? Or is he just kind of a jerk? I just don't know.

"Ci sono molti modi, mia cara, di rendere vittima qualcuno. Il più insidioso è di convincerlo che è una vittima."

I think I liked this book. I really have no idea. I would want someone else to read it and tell me what they thought. Right now I am bewildered, annoyed, and smiley all at the same time. The perspective Robbins uses is really unique to any book I've ever read and so is the rest of the book. weird, but not in a gross or filthy way, unless you're really prudish, funny, and an ending that'll leave you wondering if this book was any good. 5 stars..... maybe.