Beautiful Children: A Novel (edit title)

• Rated 2 stars

“This book was a major disappointment. Awhile back, my husband and I saw a play, where at the end of Act I, my husband knew the horrible outcome coming. I couldn't believe that that would be where the playwright would go but was wrong. We left just before the end of the play, now both knowing what was coming and feeling as though we'd been hit over the head with a hammer for 2-1/2 hours. That's the way I felt in much of this book. He's a good writer, at times much better than a good writer. But he keeps hammering and it gets extremely wearing. That Las Vegas has a sordid side is a given. That runaways trying to survive there have a rough time is also a given. Does he really have to show degradation of so many for me to get that point? I get the feeling that he was so invested in every precious scene he'd created over 7 years of writing that he didn't want to part with a single one. I think he needed to--there's "too much of a muchness" here. He has an interesting structure of slices of action from character to character, but there are quite a few characters to follow and some of them are hard to take, even in small doses. Yes, he shifts the reader's view of the character in different "slices," but I got sick of reading about Ponyboy and his zipper tattoo where Jabba had cut him. Then he has these other parts, the gorgeous chapter following Lincoln's recollections of his early times with his son and his slow alienation from him. I wanted much, much more from this book.”

• Rated 1 stars

“Boring”

• Rated 5 stars

“This book is the best written book I have read in a long time. Intensely moving, vivid look at daily life in Vegas, life as a runaway, life as a kid in modern society. This will be my book to recommend for some time to come.”

• Rated 2 stars

“(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this review, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

This is one of two books I've recently read that I didn't care for enough to finish, but weren't exactly terrible so didn't want to include them in my snarky "Too Awful to Finish" series of essays; it's the high-profile Beautiful Children by Charles Bock, which I actually read electronically because of his publisher Random House giving away the digital version recently as an online promotion. It's a supposedly edgy and gritty look at the various losers and junkies that make up the underclass of society, set in this case in Las Vegas but really examining the wrong side of the tracks of any large city; but I'm warning you, this book is "edgy and gritty" the same way a movie on the Lifetime Channel is edgy and gritty, and those who are not necessarily shocked by Valerie Bertinelli playing an abused wife are sure to greet Beautiful Children mostly with disgruntled yawns. Like, did you know that sometimes people are actually forced to sell personal possessions to make ends meet? Did you know that many teen boys enjoy reefer and x-rated comics? Did you know that some people enjoy having sex with other people without even knowing their names? If your answer is yes, then you're probably going to want to skip Beautiful Children; and if your answer is no, dude, seriously, you are not reading my other reviews closely enough.

Out of 10: 5.6”

• Rated 2 stars

“I was a bit disappointed with the book....I was really expecting something exciting and great to happen but it never did....he did an amazing job with the writing and I really cared a lot about the characters but I guess the hype I read about it built up my expectations too much....a bit let down with the ending”

• Rated 2 stars

“This was well and extravagantly written, but I found the characters to be one-dimensional grotesques and the story to be adolescent indulgence wrapped up in a "message" about homeless teens. Can't recommend it. ”

• Rated 4 stars

“Just started this (like 1/4 through), but it is great and heartbreaking and pretty and hideous and I am just happier than shit that I have a new author to track that I give a fuck about. So sick of Franzen and Saffron Foer or whatever the hell, get over it. (ed. this review, as with all reviews posted by the author, should be taken with several large grains of salt, preferably followed by booze and citrus of some kind. Said author is a tad grumpy in his fiction tastes, and his preferences are so hardened by this late stage of his life, that only books that are classics of some kind, or modern fiction of the most darkened verisimilitude that he (the author) must have splenetic fluid drained bi-weekly, are even considered worthy of perusal. The author has not slept for a bit, either. We here at the editorial staff of JZS would like to extend our sincere congratulations to misters Foer and Franzen, whose texts and movie renditions have thrilled and entertained millions, including (in the case of m. Franzen) the parents of the aforementioned author's ex, those bastions of critical comprehension and perspective-taking.)”

• Rated 5 stars

“Amazing characterizations and very poignant prose. Reminded me a bit of American Beauty or The Ice Storm with its omniscient insights into people's quiet lives of desperation. The Vegas backdrop just added to all the seediness and sadness. Anxious to see if put everything he had into this book, or if this is just the beginning of an amazing literary career.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Very well written. Structure is very intricate and sometimes a bit hard to follow. Really related to the parents of the missing child and had a harder time relating to all the street kids. His portrait of Las Vegas is fascinating and familiar. No doubt this is a very talented new writer.”

• Rated 4 stars

“A well written novel that examines the homeless, and runaway youth scene behind the glitter of Las Vegas. Definitely not a beach read, this book alternates between a spoiled and confused twelve year old, his parents, and various persons who inhabit the margins of society - not a pretty story, but one worth reading.”