The Internet Magpie’s #CBR4 Review #2: A visit from the Goon Squad.
(Jennifer Egan)
I didn’t get it.
This is a really hard review to write, because it was a good book and I enjoyed reading it, but I feel like I’m missing something here. Egan’s novel is a series of characters whose lives intersect via music and technology, and I can certainly relate to that, but I didn’t feel much of a connection to anything in these pages.
She was amazing with details and character descriptions (some of her characters would have been perfectly at home in Francesca Lia Block’s LA, and I loooooooooooooooved Francesca Lia Block’s LA when I was growing up a super-awkward teen in Massachusetts) and little glimpses of the future, but I think I missed something.
Who else read this and got a lot out of it? It was a great book about Pretty People with Problems and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t super-affecting and didn’t much make me think. I just enjoyed it. I really wanted to enjoy it more than I did!
Seriously, can we discuss this in the comments, either here or on my blog? Sometimes talking about books helps me appreciate them more.
(340 pages)
I’m not going to help you appreciate it more. I thought it was ok. It reminded me of a movie that has great actors playing interesting roles but not much story. Maybe if she added a murder mystery or something to thread it all together I would have enjoyed it more. <– only partly kidding