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Mar 09, 2008

Scott rated it:

So, I've got this little disorder. Just this one: Once I begin reading a book, I am compelled to finish it. Regardless of how much I dislike it, I continue to pick up the book... continue to read.

After finishing Brett Easton Ellis' excellent Lunar Park (see previous post), I wanted to read something by Jay Mcinerny. Jay is a character in Lunar Park and is best known for his breakthrough novel Bright Lights, Big City. Not sure what posessed me, but rather than going for the easy bet a More...

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Dec 17, 2009

Kristen rated it:

This book was recommended to me because of my love for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. The Good Life is about love, loss, self discovery post 9/11. Just like ELIC, the focus is not on 9/11 but the characters are dealing with the magnitude of the event.

However, unlike ELIC, I did not fall in love with the characters. They were almost too flawed and too complex. Lots of extra storylines that were unnecessary but probably included to fully develop the flawed nature of the chara More...

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Jul 31, 2010

Rebekkila rated it:

The lives of two people in New York City whose lives were changed by the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. I felt a lot of empathy for the characters, I remember how I was affected and re-assessed what was important and what was not. From the Publisher:Clinging to a semiprecarious existence in TriBeCa, Corrine and Russell Calloway have survived a separation and are thoroughly wonderstruck by young twins whose provenance is nothing less than miraculous, even as they contend with the fad More...

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May 27, 2009

Ted rated it:

Jay McInerney, Brat Pack novelist, Manhattanite extraordinaire and famed party goer, got the urge to step up to the plate and write a Great American Novel, a work that would raise him finally from the middle rungs of the literary ladder and allow him to reach the top shelf where only the best scribes--Hemingway! Fitzgerald! Thomas Wolfe!-- sit and cast their long collective shadow over the fields of aspiring geniuses, furious scribblers all. McInerney has selected a large subject with which to m More...

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Jun 20, 2011

David rated it:

Jay McInerney's title is an germinal answer seeking the roots of a mystical question: what makes life good? New Yorkers tend to become immersed in lifestyles meant to accumulate maximum wealth in pursuit of their visions of the good life. They measure their worth by their clothes, cars, homes, jobs, children's schools, alma maters and their recognition on the vast moving ladder of a highly competitive, high society. 911 changed the perceptions of how many people viewed their own lives. Many came More...

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Nov 17, 2010

Jessica rated it:

Here's the thing about Jay McInerney. I really want to like him a lot. As one would expect, I compare him to Bret Easton Ellis and when you look at Less Than Zero and Bright Lights, Big City side by side, I think McInerney wins that one handily. I loved that book. It was vibrant and everything it should have been. But I really love Ellis's whole body of work, I feel like he is always interesting. This is my 3rd McInerney and I haven't liked anything except that first awesome book.

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Nov 12, 2010

Renee rated it:

The Good Life was the final book that I read on my honeymoon, but was only able to start it. It took two weeks post-honeymoon to finish it because I wasn't deeply engaged.

I'm the opposite of Scott Reston (see reviews): I don't feel the need to finish a book if I don't like it. I put it down and move on. The Good Life was different; as much as I was annoyed with the characters and the plot, I felt like I needed to finish it, even if it took time.

The character development and p More...

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Jan 20, 2009

Jeff rated it:

He makes up for a truly wretched conception and premise--essentially using 9/11 as a stageprop beneath which a group of over-privileged, amoral, mostly obnoxious New Yorkers can justify the infidelity and lousy parenting that plagued their lives even before any terrorist attacks (might have worked as a satire, but not as an earnest "love story")--by packing each paragraph with wonderful prose and dozens of acute observations re: urban life...

It really just needed some charact More...

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Sep 13, 2011

Brian rated it:

I would compare McInerney to Jonathan Franzen, and not unfavorably. They share a sensibility: that the big picture American issues come into focus with the folks in the uppermiddleclass (professionals, doctors, managers, creatives). I don't really have a problem with that, though some might (and should). On top of that, they're both fairly good at stripping options away from their characters. Set-ups usually include affairs and disasters through which the notion of choice is left to either Germa More...

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Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

Literary playboy Jay McInerney earns mixed reviews here. Most glaringly, his novel is not about the 9/11 tragedy, though much of the buzz around the book focuses on the setting. The adulterous affair sparked in the dust of the towers occupies center stage, but most critics disparage the romance as sappy, hackneyed, and embarrassing. Some reviewers praise McInerney's writerly maturity in developing these rich New Yorkers. But it's not a consistent portrayal. "The novel is a bizarre mix of th

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Sep 02, 2008

Leila rated it:

The actual 9/11 descriptions were engaging, but once the book turned to character development and love story, I felt it fell flat. I found it really hard to care about any of the characters and the interpersonal dynamics felt overly self-congratulatory and forced. Meh.

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Feb 17, 2011

Indah rated it:

When I picked up this book, i thought it would be an interesting one, judging by the good title and cover. And it turned out to be a blah.
This book is just a picture of midlife crisis-big city-stereotype. Couples grew appart, coincidence which lead to infidelity. I would say that the author just jolted in the big city - New York, big names - New Yorkers, big event - 9/11, and the s "scene", to make things attractive, which was a failed attempt.
I should've just trusted my g More...

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Apr 21, 2010

Michelle rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Aug 26, 2010

Holly rated it:

I really enjoyed this book - especially the second half where the love story really takes off. It is set in the days and months immediately after 9/11 in Manhattan. Two unlikely individuals, from upper class wealthy families decide to volunteer on the front lines an dfind love and commonalities, including similarities among their damaged marriages.

Unfortunately, like most male writers, I think he is unable to ultimately end the love story on a hopeful note but rather a moment of More...

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Jul 19, 2010

Cheryl rated it:

The novel opens with great epigrams from John Cheever (about the mysteries of middle age) and Ana Menendez (about the passions evoked by tragedy), but it left me thinking I should read John Cheever or Ana Menendez instead of this book. The main characters are a WASPy Tribeca mom and a disaffected Wall Street guy, both married to other people. When the fall of the Twin Towers prompts them to fall for each other, I got the feeling the author wanted us to think that their affair was special because More...

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Jun 10, 2009

Caris rated it:

This is the kind of crap that I do not want to read. Having to suffer through the plot of a redundant romance novel set in the wake of what has come to be a redundant catastrophic event was almost more than I could take.

Frankly, I expected more from the author of Bright Lights, Big City. I was curious to see how his style has matured over the years. It's matured alright- right into its golden age. In fact, I'd say this book could be a eulogy for his style which must have died in the More...

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Dec 01, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

I was really invested in these characters and their stories. The end really really pissed me right off. How on earth are we supposed to go thru chapter after chapter of these people planning and planning and evolving into who they want to be, only to have it go up in smoke on the last page? Is it that easy to just decide not to be happy, not to follow thru, not to move forward? I just didn't get it. I checked this out because Bright Lights Big City was not available at the base library. I look f More...

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Oct 10, 2011

Stacey rated it:

I know he's a good author so this book is surprisingly bad. The sex scenes are the most unreadable parts, but the rest is none too great either. And the characters are so whiny, overprivileged and unlikable that I really couldn't care whether they worked out their problems or not. Perhaps the book's era has passed-- it belongs in a time when average people felt sorry for the rich of Lower Manhattan because they had been attacked by terrorists, instead of wanting to eat them because they're part More...

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Mar 21, 2011

Myles rated it:

Though a sequel of sorts to Brightness Falls, The Good Life stands well on its own. While reading it I was careful to look out for mentions of the events of the previous book or hints at a character's past that could only be explained by reading Brightness Falls, and there was very little. None, in fact. McInerney did an excellent job of maintaining the characters and their pasts without repeating himself in a way that would be irritating for someone, like me, reading the two back to back.

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Aug 05, 2011

Amanda rated it:

The definitive 9/11 novel. For me anyway. McInerney dispenses with the revolting sentiment surrounding most books on the topic and stays away from the literary double vaults and triple somersaults attempted by Ian McEwan in Saturday. I love this book for that.

McInerney resuscitates some of my favourite characters in The Good Life. I remember Russell and Corrine Calloway from McInerney's masterpiece, Brightness Falls.

McInerney is a brilliant writer who knows New York and More...

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May 11, 2010

Katherine rated it:

The quote from the Times on the cover of this book says that it has more sympathy and depth than McInerney's other fiction. I think that's right - but most importantly, it has more heart. If Bright Lights, Big City is a fast paced, emotionally removed ride through 80's New York City, this is its older, wiser cousin, with its close up view of the lives of New Yorkers post-9/11. McInerney gets at New York in a real way in this novel, and so for that reason the book is a pleasure (especially as More...

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Jun 19, 2008

Christopher rated it:

As a New York writer, McInerny attempts his obligatory 9/11 novel. I have never read any of his other works, but here he rerpises some characters from an earlier, more famous work. His sense of place is strong: This story takes place between New York and Nashville (the latter only in the last few chapters), two places I happen to know well, and he captures the locations well. His writing is graceful, and overall the book was pleasurable to read. The main drawback is thematic. A "9/11 Novel" More...

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Apr 09, 2008

Gail rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Jul 27, 2009

Joshua rated it:

easy to read. not in a really good way. really uneven, in subject and in tone. there were some parts that were really good. for example the ending, which at least it wasn't a total cop out. and a bit about jumpers from the twin towers.
still though, the marital paralysis of upper crust manhattanites is something that i am really quite indifferent to. not exactly interesting subject matter. unless you read star magazine. or w. in which case, have at it.

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Feb 10, 2009

Edijkelly rated it:

The return of the Calloways, stars of Brightness Falls. Interestingly, though BF is set in the '80s and TGL is set in '01/'02, only a few years have actually passed in the lives of the characters. Sadly, it's not nearly as good as the first. The characters are less compelling, you care less what happens to them. However, taken as a reaction to the 9/11 attacks and read solely on that emotional level, it can be rewarding.

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May 27, 2011

Joan rated it:

coming from the ny/nj area this novel is a must read! I absolutely loved it, its a bitter sweet recognition of the personal dimensions of 9/11...how it effected some and not all in the immediate area...this is not a scary, unrecognizable scenario; it deals with people of all walks of life and not solely the workers at the aftermath...we lived thru it and we have made and continue to make it on a day to day basis, great work.

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Jul 08, 2008

Lisa rated it:

Having been in NYC the morning of September 11th this book brought back so many memories both good and bad of that day. the collective terror and sheer panic. Although I enjoyed the book, had I really known it had all of the Sept. 11th references I am not sure I would have picked it up. Coincidentially, his book "Bright Lights, Big City" was a big part of the reason I wanted to move to NYC after college. I think the book captured the NYC scene really like only an insider could. More...

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Jun 18, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

A fiction book about 9/11. The jest of the book without going into any major detail is a women and man who aren’t happy with their lives both volunteer at a soup kitchen near ground zero. And get together. And it’s for the better. And you don’t really feel too bad for their families because they are fucked up anyway and you just feel that they would be better together anyway.

Grade: C

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May 18, 2009

Alec rated it:

I can't quite decide how I feel about this book. I thought some of the characters were well developed, some just types. I also thought he did a good job presenting how 9/11 was ever-present in everyone's minds at the time but started to take a back seat to one's own problems from time to time once the immediate horror faded. Nicely written but it left me feeling a little cold.

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Jul 19, 2010

Laura rated it:

I am a huge McInerney fan. The Good Life was a slow read, but once I got into the first few chapters, I started to feel for the main characters. The ending, however, really let me down. I felt it was a cop out. There was no resolution whatsoever. It just...ended. Worth a read for true McInerney fans but not so much for everyone else.

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