A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius | Dave Eggers

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius | Dave Eggers | Gosh, should I add to 900 some reviews?

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A Heartbreaking Wo...

	A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers Vintage, 2001 - 496 pages average customer review:based on 904 reviews view larger image
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The literary sensation of the year, a book that redefines both family and narrative for the twenty-first century. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read in paperback for decades to come. The Vintage edition includes a new appendix by the author.

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Staggering Genius indeed.

"A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius." Indeed. So few writers have Egger's gift. Wit, wisdom, a sense of humour, vision, style, flair, and the passion that enables him to masterfully craft such a truly genius work.

Gosh, should I add to 900 some reviews?

I don't think I have ever given a book a review of "dead in the middle," ringing it at 3 of 5, but I have to do it to this one. I usually really don't like books or really enjoy them (ok, a few I love). I also usually put books down and walk away when I struggle over months to get through them, BUT I found this drive to finish this one. First, it was highly recommended by a friend who is a writer for a living. Second, it has been high acclaimed. Third, I found the brilliance in the ability to write such realistic detail for so many pages on end, but alas, that was where the 3 stopped. The detail bored me to tears and made me want to skip to wear the plot picked back up, except it really never did. I suppose I am just not a good reader of rambling thoughts. I oddly enough know that Eggers is a gifted person, but this piece and the reasons I read for entertainment and intellectual improvement couldn't mesh here.

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starts off wonderful, ends up lost

My good friend highly recommended this book for me to read last summer, citing Dave Eggers as his hero, and so I eagerly picked this up and delved into a story of a great sibling relationship in the wake of a tragedy.

As a 21 year old college student about to graduate, you would think that I would be obssessed with this work, completely representing my generation. And indeed, it succeeded in that. The whole living situation in the Bay Area of California was awesome, and his whole mantra of being young and free in America was great too, and the book should have ended at that. I should warn you that this is a memoir, so his ego is immensely represented as him being basically a self-absorbed Berkeley young intellectual. I could ramble on and on about this book and why I wouldn't rate it higher, but I'll just get to the point.

The first half is simply enjoyable to read with the whole relationship with his brother, dealing with the loss of parents (whom he seemingly never cared for), and with his sister being driven in law school and eventually marrying. His emotions are presented well with his relationships in this memoir, and then suddenly, as if out of the blue, Toph (his brother) is never mentioned again. The second half of the book is about his magazine and this MTV interview that never seems to end. It was so boring and meaningless. I want to read about you and your brother and your lives, not about some stupid magazine and a pretentious MTV real world interview to nowhere.

Overall, I get what he's saying, and it is a good message. Namely, family comes first but it is great to be young and free in America in your 20's, of course if only brought up by wealthy suburban Chicago parents. About 90% of America can't afford to rent his house that he did in the Berkeley hills with views of SF bay and not a job in site. It is a good book and I enjoyed it, but the Pulitzer Prize? No way.

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