A Visit from the Goon Squad

Lest all you think I do is eat and run and listen to music, below is my book review from Goodreads (love, love, love this website!)

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If Nick Hornby and Orwell sat down and hashed out a book it might look something like this.  OK, maybe just the last chapter.  This book was literally all over the place.  Each chapter was a different person, different point in time, different angle on a different story.  All of it felt a little washed over with a grey-ish haze.  Everyone's view was just a little off.  No one was very happy, about anything, even the tween girl's chapter.  I read it in a matter of days because it was entertaining in the way that looking in the window of someone's house and getting a momentary glimpse into their lives is entertaining.  Even in the most heart-wrenching story of the suicidal college friend, it seemed glossed over.  That perhaps we only got a washed-down version.  I did enjoy how, for certain people she scanned way into the future and we got to know what happened to them (for better or worse).  The last chapter was so outside the realm of the rest of the book that it seemed a part of another book entirely.  Without the detail something like what she's describing requires I thought it fell a little short and I was disappointed because I think she was definitely onto something.  Handsets and pointers and the new rebellion being clean kids?  No doubt this is where we're heading but it wasn't enough for me to buy it completely.


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