A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

A little disjointed, but I guess that's part of the beauty of it. Personally, I thought some of the "Hey! Check it out! This is a novel and I'm being self-conscious" elements were really kind of bothersome, but mostly I thought it was really engaging if only because I would sometimes stay up an hour or two after I should have gone to sleep. Also, any book that can make me...more

A little disjointed, but I guess that's part of the beauty of it. Personally, I thought some of the "Hey! Check it out! This is a novel and I'm being self-conscious" elements were really kind of bothersome, but mostly I thought it was really engaging if only because I would sometimes stay up an hour or two after I should have gone to sleep. Also, any book that can make me laugh out loud is usually a winner. The part where Dave talks about addressing gifts to Toph at Christmas caused what might be the most uproarious laughter I've ever undergone while reading a book. I read it over. I read it out loud to Jenny, and laughed continuously for a good six or seven minutes. Overall, I prefer "You Shall Know Our Velocity" and I don't think I love this book as much as everyone else I know does, but I really really liked it a lot.   hide

I will say this book is uniquely written, but I am a little unimpressed with the kind of "look how eccentric I am" perspective he gives. I was quite surprised by this American memoir because I read his book "What is the What" first, a memoir of one of the lost boys of Sudan, which has become probably my favorite book of all time, but the writing hardly resembles this work at...more

I will say this book is uniquely written, but I am a little unimpressed with the kind of "look how eccentric I am" perspective he gives. I was quite surprised by this American memoir because I read his book "What is the What" first, a memoir of one of the lost boys of Sudan, which has become probably my favorite book of all time, but the writing hardly resembles this work at all. It was hard to get through. Dave Eggers is that weird, obnoxiously confident guy in high school that some girls found fascinating, and some girls thought would just be a child forever, and avoided. Nice, but obnoxious.   hide

Disappointing, quite boring in places...meh.

Just read it.