I will begin by stating that my anticipation was for this small novella to be more humorous. I mean, seriously... we're talking about Steve Martin here. However, after learning that each of the characters is actually a bit more comical in the film adaptation of the book, I can overlook this slight disappointment in the paperback and move forward.

Overall, I rather relished this one-hundred-or-so-page little gem. Martin can indeed write prose better than I had expected, and for less than $4, this novel left me content. There's Mirabelle, who I must admit is a rather upsetting excuse for a leading female character, and then there's Ray Porter, the middle-aged millionaire who sweeps her off her feet and manages to gradually tear her heart into a billion tiny and unidentifiable pieces. The plot is predictable, to be sure, and there were a few moments when the story became quite gloomy and miserable and all I desired was to shut the book and hurl it across the room... but ultimately, I'm glad I completed it. Martin managed to weave a tale of love and loss and finally renewal, and when packaged all together, the characters, the plot, and the diction are all quite lovely. It's authentic.

Actually, I think this short read is either one that you'll adore or loathe. I also have the sense that some of the philosophies written throughout the pages are some of Steve Martin's own, but that's just me hoping that I've somehow obtained an in-depth look at one of my favorite comedian's psyches.

Something about Shopgirl truly held me at arm's length. It made it seem just the tiniest bit unfeasible for me to fall in love with it. Maybe it was the rather dispassionate tone of the narration. The characters seemed overly obsequious, lacking in true depth and authenticity. And the conflict of the plot was just lackluster, failing to grip my attention firmly. This novella was simply not my soulmate. It read very much like a first novel, showing a bit of inexperience in certain aspects. However, it wasn't without its own style or craft. There was still a glimmer of promise for future attempts by the author. I'm content enough to have spent my afternoon reading it. But I wouldn't wholeheartedly recommend it strongly. It has its flaws, but perhaps with more practice and refinement, the author could produce something truly remarkable in the future.

I've had this book sitting on my shelf for years.

There was no particular reason for never picking it up and reading it. Maybe it was just inertia, or perhaps I wasn't in the right mood. Or maybe it was some other unknown factor. But now that I've finally read it, I absolutely love it.

It's a small little story about average people living average lives. However, Martin shows a deep and profound insight into the workings of both the male and female mind. He delves into the juxtaposition of how a relationship appears from the male side and the female side. These are far different perspectives, and he presents them frankly and honestly. It feels like having a conversation with your best friends over dinner, after having a few too many drinks. At that moment, all the barriers come down, and we can finally be completely, totally, unashamedly honest with both our friends and ourselves.

"Shopgirl" isn't just a love story, although there is love within its pages. It's more of a life story. It's about personal growth. It's about how we sometimes fail each other even when we're trying to help. It's about how what we think we want is often not what we truly need.

Martin is as talented a writer as he is a comedian and actor. His range is truly astounding. His humor is sometimes blatant, but more often it's subtle, more so than I would have expected after seeing him on various stages throughout his career. Most importantly, Martin is human, and it is his humanity that shines through the pages of this novel and touches the humanity within me.

I highly recommend reading this book. You won't regret it.

I don't have overly high expectations when I pick up this book. It's simply out of curiosity, and last evening, I was in the mood to read something short and uncomplicated. (The other options I had were all based on rather tough subjects: Jodi Picoult's Perfect Match, Amy and Isabelle, and Duncan's Birth of Venus.) In the end, I set the other three books aside and chose this one.

I have watched the movie adaptation. At first, it was slow and a bit painful to get through, but by the end, I truly loved it. The same goes for this book. The long stretches of narration without much dialogue initially made me feel bored. However, one aspect of this book that I really like is its subtlety and quietness. Its perspective makes you think, yet it doesn't rush or rely on tired clichés. Of course, the topic itself is actually quite ordinary, but a talented writer like Steve Martin can transform the ordinary into something truly touching.

Steve Martin writes beautifully. He sometimes inserts some laughable jokes, as he has a great sense of humor. It seems that he writes both sides of the story with careful observation, because we can all identify with the events and emotions in the story.

I don't understand why some people find this book horrible. To me, there are only a few books that leave a lasting impression. When you reach the last sentence, you let out a slow breath and feel as if you've just read something truly wonderful. When I caught a glimpse of the last sentence "I keep a photograph of you", that's exactly how I felt - I had discovered and read a great book.

Steve Martin is, quite surprisingly, highly proficient in prose.

A maestro of the comedic realm, Mr. Martin, without any pretentiousness, manages to infuse the tale of a somewhat imbalanced shopgirl, Mirabelle. She is a truly ordinary girl with little to occupy her. He endows her story with a sense of mirth and understanding that undermines all of his celebrity status and stand-up fame.

Mirabelle encounters both a fledgling Jeremy and a middle-aged millionaire Ray Porter. The short novella delves, with a flat, unwavering, and at times almost dull gaze, into the capture of a woman coming to terms with her sexuality and confronting her reality. Here, she explores the world of love with the idea that one day she will truly be artistic. There, Jeremy explores the world of the subconscious with the thought that he will learn how to love. And finally, at the end, Ray Porter explores the world of the sexual to discover the deviant connection between sex and deeper emotion.

The plot is, without a doubt, predictable. There is this consistent and melancholy touch of the ordinary in this unassuming book about ordinary people. And that is precisely what made Shopgirl so memorable for me. It shows that ordinary people, perhaps like myself, or like you, standing at retail counters, even they have stories. And those stories are worthy, even if they are not as flashy as others.

I can't recall precisely when I read Shopgirl. It was probably sometime between 2007 and 2010. However, I do remember being somewhat nonplussed by the novella. I think I had expected it to be more humorous, as I had read one of Steve's earlier comedy books before. But to my surprise, it had much more emotional depth and complexity than I had anticipated.

From time to time, I remember something that I read many years ago, long before Goodreads became a part of my life, and which I forgot to include in my list sooner. Shopgirl is one of those books. But now that I've remembered it, here we are, along with Steve. This is exactly why I love Goodreads! It allows me to rediscover these forgotten literary gems and share my thoughts and memories about them with others.

Goodreads has truly become a wonderful platform for book lovers like me to connect, discuss, and explore the world of literature. It helps me keep track of the books I've read, discover new ones, and engage in meaningful conversations with fellow readers. I'm so glad that I found this amazing community and I look forward to many more years of sharing my love for books on Goodreads.

I saw the movie (based on this book) last year sometime. So, I had a certain anticipation regarding the plot and characters. However, I truly wish I had read this book before watching the movie. Because then I would have understood - not all the characters better, but Ray Porter in particular. In the movie, he doesn't come across as well as he does in the book.

"Shopgirl" is about a young woman named Mirabelle. She works in the glove department of Neiman's, where she rarely gets to see a customer. She's an artist and takes medication for depression. She lives with two cats - or rather, one cat and one "alleged" cat, as my mother used to call those cats you never saw but were sure were around the house or under it. Mirabelle meets a young man named Jeremy, who is far more of a loser than she is and not very bright either. That relationship doesn't go anywhere fast. But around this time, she meets Ray Porter, a 50-something divorcee who is wealthy, healthy, and someone she can lean on.

All the characters in this story are deeply flawed. That is to say, they are very normal and familiar, artfully captured in Martin's dry, ironic prose. An omniscient narrator details their lives, explains their idiosyncrasies, motivations, hopes, and dreams with sharp, all-too-true observations of L.A. society (and elsewhere). The language is often crude, but it works perfectly with the no-bullshit tone, which is tinged with sweetness in the novella. Here's a great scene that deftly portrays the easy misunderstanding between two people who want quite different things yet are unable to speak clearly about them.

The story has a style that took me several pages to get used to, but then I was completely engaged. I love Martin's dry wit, the irony with which he portrays the characters and scenes, and the occasional funny allegory. He manages to make L.A. (a place I've never been to and have no interest in ever visiting) seem real and inhabited by real people. I cared about Mirabelle, and Ray too. Even Jeremy. I didn't care as much about Lisa; she's pitiable. I can easily see myself re-reading this book and getting more out of it each time. Now that I understand what's going on in Ray's brain, I'd quite like to watch the movie again.

This would've gotten 2 stars for its slowness.

The story seemed to drag on at times, making it a bit of a struggle to stay engaged. However, despite the sluggish pace, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the ending.

It was unexpected and added a layer of depth and interest that I hadn't anticipated.

It was as if all the build-up, although perhaps a bit tedious, had been leading to this moment of revelation.

In the end, the ending managed to salvage the overall experience for me and bumped up my rating from what it might have been otherwise.

While the slowness was a drawback, the satisfying conclusion made it a story that I would still recommend to others, with the caveat that they should be prepared for a bit of a slower burn.

I absolutely LOVE this book!

Even though Steve Martin seems to focus more on telling rather than showing, which might go against the golden writing rule (possibly deliberately?), the book is still truly wonderful.

It just goes to prove that truly great post-postmodern writing can break the rules and still succeed.

Although I wouldn't necessarily classify "Shopgirl" as post-postmodern, it does incorporate one of the most commonly used techniques in that category.

However, "Shopgirl" is a novella, and I'm not overly familiar with the rules governing how a novella should be written or what liberties one can take.

This means I need to get my hands on a list of remarkable novellas to read and learn more about the art of the novella.

One of my favorite lines from "Shopgirl" is: "...Mirabelle's mind floats in space, and the five fingers that pull her toward him are received into her heart like a psalm."

Steve Martin is a remarkable writer. The book is filled with drama rather than humor (much to my surprise), and it's a beautiful love story.

The way he portrays his heroine is simply lovely. She is delicate, naive yet talented, brave, and charming. She feels familiar.

Martin does an excellent job of capturing what it's like to be a single, twenty-eight-year-old female, the hardships of being alone, and the challenges of the dating world.

I really like Mirabelle and connected with her character quickly. The book is real and doesn't hold back, and there are lines of true poetry and powerful imagery that literally made me gasp in awe.

Steve Martin's writing has cast a spell on me. He gets his characters down to the tiniest detail and writes about them with honesty and integrity, even when exposing their flaws.

I will most definitely be rereading this book in the future.

Steve Martin is a talented author who has written a romantic novel. The novel is filled with humor, which makes it an enjoyable read. However, I have to admit that I think his earlier works are superior. I know it sounds like a cliche to say that, but in this case, it couldn't be more true. Ever since Martin made the transition into family films, his writing has taken a different turn.

His earlier novels had a certain charm and depth that his more recent works seem to lack. The characters were more complex, and the storylines were more engaging. Maybe it's because he's now focusing on a different audience, but I can't help but feel a bit disappointed.

Despite my personal preference for his earlier work, I still appreciate the effort that Martin has put into this romantic novel. It's a lighthearted and fun read that will surely bring a smile to your face. I just hope that in the future, he'll return to his roots and give us more of the great stories that we've come to love.

It's truly a challenging feat to balance an ironic sensibility with the essence of romance. After all, irony has the power to create distances, offering a different perspective, while romance, on the other hand, brings you closer, allowing you to feel those warm and fuzzy emotions. However, Steve Martin has spent a lifetime fine-tuning his lens through the medium of comedy.

In "Shopgirl," he delves into the romantic coming of age of Mirabelle, a 28-year-old aspiring artist who finds herself working in the glove department of Neiman Marcus. The story is set in Los Angeles, a place where the worst aspects of consumer society seem to mutate into anorexic skeletons condemned to shop on Rodeo Drive for all eternity. Martin playfully pokes fun at this money-driven culture, much like he did in "L.A. Story" for which he penned the script. He clearly sees the silliness, yet I believe his attitude is more of an affectionate teasing. There is no hint of an LA where life could be taken seriously.

Mirabelle isn't really a character who immediately engages you, but rather a vehicle through which Martin explores the differences between the way men and women think about love, the follies of youth, and the self-delusions of older wealthy men. Mirabelle becomes entangled with Jeremy, a young and clueless slacker, and with Ray Porter, the older, rich guy. (Ray is almost always referred to as 'Ray Porter,' an example of the distance with which Martin treats his characters).

I found that there were numerous laughs throughout the book, and Martin's sharp observations of life and love in LA were an absolute delight to read. He has been frequently published in the New Yorker, and I think his style is almost like that of the New Yorker magazine, but infused with the warmth of California sunshine. The searing intelligence is laid bare in a bright world that appears to have no shadows.

Overall, "Shopgirl" offers a unique and entertaining perspective on love and life in the glitzy and sometimes absurd world of Los Angeles.

Ack. In his eagerness, perhaps, to persuade the world that he is a serious author, Steve Martin pens a truly, truly dreadful book. Kindly, one could describe it as spare, modern, and zen-like; however, to be honest, it could be called artificial, pretentious, and mind-numbingly boring. It is a coming-of-age novella about an emotionally damaged shopgirl named Mirabelle and her affairs with a flaky man named Jeremy and a pompous older fellow with the personality of a paper plate, named Ray Porter. Poor, artistic, and naïve Mirabelle, who sells gloves, desires someone to love her. In reality, she wants her father to love her, but it is obvious that he doesn't, as he had a seven-year affair with the neighbor. Oh, and he is a Vietnam veteran with an old friend mysteriously seeking him. Wait, what? Exactly, my friends.

To be frank, this reads like a writing assignment that went awry: there are bubble gum nipples that can be chewed, a lavender-scented private part...and that's just one minor character (whose entire presence is completely unnecessary, by the way). I mean, at one point, he stated that the main character in the book was unknowingly searching for women's "quanta." What the fuck?

If you have any affection for Steve Martin at all, promise me that you will not read this book. Because you will never view him in the same light again.