A Visit from the Goon Squad
Ratings271
Average rating3.8
Whatever it's literary bonafides (I'll leave that to the pros) this book is just very cool. If I had read it in high school I would have been obsessed with it. The stories set in the past made me think of Douglas Copeland, while others (particularly “Selling the General” and “Pure Language”) remind me of George Saunders. The last three chapters are my favorite, and however gimmicky “Great Rock and Roll Pauses by Alison Blake” may be criticized, it is also the most poignant.
This book is at its essence a whole bunch of people's seemingly unrelated, messy stories woven into one story. It points out that people are much more connected than they realise, a beautiful thing about life on earth: we tend to run into everyone else every so often. Many of the stories were heartbreaking, and left my mind full of the sweet, poignant rhythm that is life. It was very interesting to read a book that doesn't stick to one perspective, but leaps all over the place from first-person, to third-person, to a chapter entirely composed of digital slides. This book is extremely relatable and all the characters are very real- I would recommend it to any person who is alive.
Really, really good. Going to read [b: The Candy House 58437521 The Candy House Jennifer Egan https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1642351487l/58437521.SY75.jpg 86707532] soon for sure. Winesburg, Ohio-like collection of stories/vignettes/snapshots. Each one definitely stands on its own, but is tempered by what has come before.
Loved it. Such unique storytelling in many ways, really captivating and just generally fun and interesting to read.
The annual Pulitzer Prize winner read and I wasn't impressed. This should have been everything I like, music and strong females and something a bit grungy and grubby.
However, I couldn't keep track of the characters (usually I love a time-hop) and quite honestly, I just didn't care. There were snippets of interest and connection but then it would lose me again, there was no-one I liked or even had any emotional response to. Just blah, and don't get me started on the slide section - no, not impressed at all.
2.5⭐ scaled up because the writing was fine.
This book is ambitious and hard to wrangle at first. So many interwoven perspectives, some in the same chapter, some of them (Jules, Alex) difficult reads for different reasons. It's a mixed bag because of this, but the high points (Dolly, Old Lou, the PowerPoint chapter) really deliver.
Thought I'd enjoy this book much more than I did. Not sure why I didn't enjoy it. Felt more like a series of connected short stories than a cohesive novel.
Wow, didn't realize I read this book almost exactly a year ago. This is my first re-read after listening to it on audiobook for my first read of it. I'm glad I bought a physical copy because there's no shortage of new discoveries in the print version. I enjoyed it as much this time around as the first time, and cannot possibly overstate how smart, innovative, and evocative the writing and characters are. Now I feel ready to read Egan's The Candy House.
“Sure, everything is ending,” Jules said, “but not yet.”
“A Visit from the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan is about being young and getting older and brought back so much nostalgia for the grunge days of my youth in the 90s. And of course, interconnected short stories! It's a beautiful way to structure an expansive narrative to show perspective and navigate scope without overwhelming the reader. And the wonderful characters are certainly no goons. They're all rock gods in their own right.
Super interesting read. Has a Memento or Vantage Point feel to it. A great book about people in the punk rock scene and how they grow up and change over the years. The first chapter absolutely pulls you in and then it kind of levels off and ends in an odd sci-fi way but overall this book makes you think.
This started out as a good read but after about 50 pages I just lost interest in the subject matter (Punk music scene)! Book was the 2011 Pulitzer prize winner and winner of many other awards that year! Subject matter is what turned me off! David N.
Taken one by one all this little stories are ok, but as a fragmented story I found this book confused with no apparent reasons and the society is described through large numbers if trivialities and stereotypes.
In my opinion, the book started out interesting. However it seemed to drag on. Seemed like a bunch of short stories except for a couple that seem to link together. It was hard to keep track of who was who in those links. There was one chapter I could not stand at all. Who cares about ~20 songs that have pauses in them. Yikes.
Nowhere near as interesting as I expected it to be, considering it won the Pulitzer. But a few good scenes.
I really thought I was going to love this book early on.
The first chapter is told from the perspective of a kleptomaniac, who lies to her boyfriend about the actions of a woman whom she stole something from. Her boyfriend goes on a rant about the (false) actions of the woman, and the narrator becomes “irked by his obliviousness even as she strove to preserve it”. That line to me was just a brilliant representation of a weird internal conflict that I was hoping would continue.
Unfortunately, while the first few chapters delve into these sort of human weaknesses, as I got further into the book I found it dipping farther into more of human depravity that I did not find enjoyable. And by the end, the “future” premises are entirely ridiculous (even if that is supposed to be the point), where society has become so commercial that babies just a few months old have their own advanced cell phones and are directly marketed to, I was just completely checked out.
I think there are some neat things here and there. Each chapter jumps around in time and to different characters that were usually tangential characters in a previous chapter, which is something I haven't really seen before and is often effective, but almost as often is very unsubtle (“Hey, remember that time that thing happened 30 pages ago?”).
I listened to this via audiobook from the library on the Libby app. The narrator Roxana Ortega was good. It felt like she chose a single main tick of each character to base her voices of them around (in control, frantic energy, sultry, etc), which can be a bit on the nose, but does a good job of differentiating a big cast and allowing you to understand the character quickly.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book. There were parts of it I really liked, but at the same time it was a slog to get through and didn't really captivate me all that much.
It's an unconventional book. It reads more like a connected collection of short stories. There's an entire chapter which consisted of a PowerPoint presentation and, although I found it a bit gimmicky at first, quickly became my favorite chapter of the book because it's such an interesting and new way of telling a story.
I loved the concept of the book. I loved the writing style. I loved the themes. I loved the PowerPoint chapter. In short, I loved the idea of the book. The actual content itself– the story, especially the characters, bored me out of my mind. While the story and its characters are forgettable, I liked the book overall.It's worth the read, at the very least.(it's also another reminder for me to finally pick up In Search of Lost Time!)
13 stories with overlapping characters, and shuffled in time, that circle around characters that are in or adjacent to the music scene. At the beginning I was quite engaged, as the writing is good, but with every chapter/story it started to feel more like a short-story collection and my interest in the characters started to dwindle. The same structure worked well for me in [b:Homegoing 27071490 Homegoing Yaa Gyasi https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1448108591s/27071490.jpg 47113792]. Which must have been the exception to the/my rule.
Time As A Bully
This novel is more reminiscent of short stories that are interconnected. Some of the stories are interesting and fast moving, others seem like fillers. What I am still mulling over is how does the title connect to the stories. Is time the goon? The one consistent theme is that time has not been good to any of the characters.
I had a hard time getting into this book because each chapter felt like a short story involving new characters that only obliquely reference previous characters. By the time I was halfway through drawing a diagram of the characters' interconnectedness, I was in love with this book. By the end,I'd have happily had it continue to introduce and connect many others' stories. I've never read anything like it.
The only thing I liked about this book is the style of writing. Other than that, it was pretty darn boring. I couldn't even understand the point of it.
it may be that two generations of war and surveillance had left people craving the embodiment of their own unease in the form of a lone, unsteay man on a slide guitar.
I find it interesting that people who didn't like this book complained about how it was a book of short stories and not a novel as described. I can see how they would perceive it as such, if they didn't actually read the book. I really, really liked the book. It grew on me. I wasn't sure that I would like it because I couldn't really find anything that mentioned what the book was about. What was the plot? Who was the main character? But before I knew it I was sucked in and I didn't care. I was sold.
I loved how every character was connected in some way. I loved their stories and the glimpses into these moments in time, but sometimes I felt a little cheated that I didn't get more. Before I knew it though, I was onto the next snippet and lost in another character's moment. My favorite moment? Alison's slideshow. Oh the feels.
Did the book deserve a Pulitzer? I have no idea. I'm not that kind of reader. The only other Pulitzer winning book I've read that I know of is Olive Kitteridge and I don't remember loving it that much so I'm not the best judge! Is the book worth reading? I think so. I think if you go in with no expectations and just read because reading is rad you will find yourself, like I did, mesmerized.