Beautiful Children: A Novel (edit title)

• Rated 4 stars

“This book was really between 3 and 4 stars for me, but I decided to bump it up to 4 stars because I thought that the writing itself was pretty amazing. I had a hard time following the plot for awhile, but once I got the gist of what Bock was doing I was happy to go along for the ride. It is a very serious subject matter and often it made me uncomfortable, but I liked the varying viewpoints a lot. I don't know that I have read many books that take place in Las Vegas, so this book opened my eyes to the different lifestyles there as well.”

• Rated 0 stars

“I didn't actually make it through this one. Gave up on it pretty early in. It was just sad.”

• Rated 1 stars

“I couldn't get past the first chapter so I put it down and never finished it. ”

• Rated 1 stars

“I was unable to finish this book. That rarely happens to me, but I just did not enjoy it at all.”

• Rated 2 stars

“Wanted to like this so much more than I did. Bock seems like a talented author who has not found his own voice yet and is doing some immature Lethem or something. Many of the characters/voices in Beautiful Children felt badly developed or phony. There is some nice prose here and there, but it was only my inability to leave books behind that kept me in this one through to the end. It was about depressing people doing depressing things, and Bock puts them there more to shock the reader or to possibly prove his ability than to achieve something interesting. But I will look for Bock in the future.”

• Rated 2 stars

“I bought this book because it got rave reviews in NYT and New Yorker and I was in Las Vegas (where the book is set) just once and it sickened me literally and figuratively. I really wanted to find out what happened to the missing boy, even though he was a brat and I hated him. I had a suspicion the author would not reveal it but I kept reading wanting to know how this string of misfit characters would come together in the end. Not wholly satisfying, but not a waste of time either.”

• Rated 2 stars

“This book was sometimes difficult to follow and somewhat disturbing in its depiction of the "underside" of Las Vegas. The story concerns a missing twelve year old boy and the actions of many other characters around the time of his disappearance. So, we get the actions of the boy, his creepy, misfit older friend, several runaways, a comic book illustrator...and his parents. Lots of folks on the fringes of society just struggling to get by.
I was annoyed that no resolution was reached; nothing was realy wrapped up or solved. While I'm glad I read the book, it isn't something I would recommend very highly or read again.”

• Rated 1 stars

“I got about 150 pages into this novel, and it took me a while to get there, I just couldn't get into the wordiness of the author. I thought the plot had potential but he just couldn't get there...I lost interest and back to the library it went. ”

• Rated 2 stars

“Depressing. I understand what the author was trying to do by having most of the main characters being troubled/street children. My issue is that there is no resolution to anything!”

• Rated 0 stars

“I met the author and he convinced me to read this one. I have no idea where the kid went and kinda didn't care by the end. Any why did the stripper have candle wicks in her nipples?”