“Personally I haven't finished it yet, but I'm over halfway through the book. While the humor is good and the sarcasm abounds this books main problem is it's authors exuberance in description, or lack thereof. I found that the story, though odd, is fairly good, but one get's lost too easily within its pages just trying to decode the next sentence. Overall I'm fairly glad I read it.”
“I feel bad that I didn't like this book more. Everyone I know who has read it thinks it's amazing, but I just wasn't really into it. It's decent, but not amazing. Eggers basically goes on long rants. I felt like I kept reading it to get to the good part, and when I finished the book, I still was left wanting to find it.”
“I thought this book was beautiful. It might have been more engaging to me than to other people because I was 17 when my mom died and left me and my 6 year old brother. I don't think it's self absorbed, but maybe you have to have had a loss at a younger age to completely understand the emotions and trials that he goes through.”
“Brilliant language and touching story that had me captivated for about the first 180 pages and then the cycle of self absorption became so monotonous that I had to stop and I actually tossed it in the garbage. ”
“I've just started reading this book, and I'm enjoying it so far, although I was a bit annoyed with Eggers at first... he seemed a little pretentious, or maybe smug is a better word. But I'm enjoying it now. I was a little surprised that his description of his mother's illness has been so unemotional up to this point. It seems like her death is only important in that it provides background for the rest of the story, which is unusual.”
“One of my favorite books”
“Yes...but...honestly, how many 21 yr olds raise an 8 yr old sibling? It almost could be a Reader's Digest main selection, except he's too angry at the world, angry at losing his freedom, angry at the so-called friends of his parents who let their kids be abandoned like that...but he does the best job he can. At one point he figures out he can pick up youngish divorced moms on parent's night at school, with his "we're both orphans" stories...later on, several years on, it occurs to him on the beach playing frisbee or some type of game with his by then young teen brother, that people going by are going to think he's a pedophile, hanging out with this young attractive teen boy at the beach, and the more he thinks about that, the more he CAN'T NOT think about it...overall all, I didn't see the angst driven literary drivel some of you saw. I enjoyed it. ”
“Quirky, unique, one of a kind memoir of a early 20-something, stuck w/ raising his 8 yr old brother after both parents die. Based on a true story. Eggers is a well known columnist and writer, this was his first book, in places is laugh out loud funny, in others is full of anger, frustration and loss. His internet column is "McSweeny's"”
“I loved this book”
“This book is one of the sincerest and funniest I have ever read. The first time I have read this was from one of my sister's bookshelves. We have just developed a knack for buying second hand books, and from the look of that book, it seemed so new and freshly printed if not has gotten itself lost and ended up in a second hand bookstore in the Philippines. That ed is better than the new paperback ed I've bought at Barnes and Noble. Nonetheless, Dave Eggers will be Dave Eggers: funny and human. ”
