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Beautiful Children

2.89 of 5 stars 2.89 · rating details · 1,365 ratings · 380 reviews

One Saturday night in Las Vegas, twelve-year-old Newell Ewing goes out with a friend and doesn't come home. In the aftermath of his disappearance, his mother, Lorraine, makes daily pilgrimages to her son's room and tortures herself with memories. Equally distraught, the boy's father, Lincoln, finds himself wanting to comfort his wife even as he yearns for solace, a loving...more One Saturday night in Las Vegas, twelve-year-old Newell Ewing goes out with a friend and doesn't come home. In the aftermath of his disappearance, his mother, Lorraine, makes daily pilgrimages to her son's room and tortures herself with memories. Equally distraught, the boy's father, Lincoln, finds himself wanting to comfort his wife even as he yearns for solace, a loving touch, any kind of intimacy.

As the Ewings navigate the mystery of what's become of their son, the circumstances surrounding Newell's vanishing and other events on that same night reverberate through the lives of seemingly disconnected strangers: a comic book illustrator in town for a weekend of debauchery; a painfully shy and possibly disturbed young artist; a stripper who imagines moments from her life as if they were movie scenes; a bubbly teenage wiccan anarchist; a dangerous and scheming gutter punk; a band of misfit runaways. The people of Beautiful Children are urban nomads; each with a past to hide and a pain to nurture, every one of them searching for salvation and barreling toward destruction, weaving their way through a neon underworld of sex, drugs, and the spinning wheels of chance.

In this masterly debut novel, Charles Bock mixes incandescent prose with devious humor to capture Las Vegas with unprecedented scope and nuance and to provide a glimpse into a microcosm of modern America. Beautiful Children is an odyssey of heartache and redemption; heralding the arrival of a major new writer.

Advance praise for Beautiful Children
Charles Bock has delivered an anxious, angry, honest first novel filled with compassion and clarity. Beautiful Children is fast, violent, sexy;like a potentially dangerous ride;it could crash at any moment but never does. The language has a rhythm wholly its own;at moments it is stunning, near genius. This book is big and wild;it is as though Bock saved up everything for this moment. A major new talent.
A. M. Homes

Beautiful Children careens from the seedy to the beautiful, the domestic to the epic, all with huge and exacting heart.
Jonathan Safran Foer

Beautiful Children is the best first novel I've read in years;certainly the best first novel of our newborn century. Charles Bock has written a masterpiece: tragic, comic, sexy, chilling, far-reaching, and wise; at once an accusation and a consolation, and a lucid portrait of what is happening at the very heart of our culture, and what it means to be a young American today.
–Sean Wilsey(less)

Hardcover, 407 pages

Published January 22nd 2008 by Random House (first published January 1st 2008)

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New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2008

48th out of 100 books — 17 voters

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2nd out of 11 books — 1 voter

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Feb 18, 2008 Danielle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Hmmm. I like that this is a big, messy book. I like its big cast of characters, and its structure, which could be confusing, but somehow manages to fit together and make all the pieces add up, without even relying on unbelievable coincidence. I like that it is telling a lot of different stories. So I guess I like this book. But, I have trouble loving this book, because there’s something very smug about it. It introduces all of its characters with such contempt, and such a sense of moral and inte...more Hmmm. I like that this is a big, messy book. I like its big cast of characters, and its structure, which could be confusing, but somehow manages to fit together and make all the pieces add up, without even relying on unbelievable coincidence. I like that it is telling a lot of different stories. So I guess I like this book. But, I have trouble loving this book, because there’s something very smug about it. It introduces all of its characters with such contempt, and such a sense of moral and intellectual superiority, that you get the sense it hates every last character. Partly, it may be a problem of form, because often the characters are being viewed from the perspective of a character who does , in fact hate everyone, but the result in uncharitable depictions of everyone. This lessens gradually, and by the end of the book the prose is openly sympathetic to its characters, but even still, it’s pity more than empathy, plus which, its hard to overcome such dismissive introductions.

OK, the world is a dangerous and exploitative place, for women and children in particular, but the danger itself would suffice in making that point. But, in this book, all of the female and adolescent characters are so vulnerable and naïve and susceptible to the whims of the adult men around them that it feels unsatisfying and dishonest. I’d be way more on this book’s side in condemning debauchery and excess if I didn’t have the sense that its actual sense of morality is cribbed from a 50’s sitcom where womenfolk and children get taken care of by a man who knows best, because they are clearly too stupid and trusting to look after themselves.

On that note, I thought “her sex,” was least favorite euphemism for vagina, but that was before I encountered “venus mound,” and “crown jewel.” Please, Mr. Bock, can we just say pussy already? I know, I know, you are a good feminist author, not like all of those sad, pathetic, porn watching, strip club visiting men you write about with such disdain, and certainly not like those men who make livings off of women’s bodies, which is why the only time a dismissive word like “pussy,” appears in your book, it’s in the mouth of a porn director, in the middle of a porn film, and you, Mr. Bock are not like that guy.

Except, well, I sort of think you doth protest too much. You have written a book in which a stripper regularly lights her nipples on fire, and one female teenage runaway contemplates going down on another teenage runaway while adjusting her clit ring, and there’s porn, porn, porn, everywhere, and it’s these scenes and their graphicness and “grittiness” that are you getting you talked about and written about, and, well, selling your books. So what, exactly is separating you from all the other men making profit of women’s bodies, other than your sense of outrage?

I get it. You like and respect women and they don’t. Except, well, in your book there’s not a single female character who is not contemptible somehow, and beyond that, there’s not a single female body, mentioned in detail or in passing, that is not in some way described as flawed or repulsive. And unlike the adult men in your book, the women don’t get to be contemptible on their own terms—they end up in precarious situations, or situations where they are compelled to be manipulative, because their boyfriends or husbands or men they needed something from put them there. Because nowhere in this whole complicated world of misogyny has a woman ever figured out what was what and decided to try to work the system. Nowhere could a woman get it into her own pretty little head that that there might be something cool about being a stripper or a porn star or a showgirl, or enjoy anything about it.

I know, I’m missing the point. Porn is icky and exploitative. And most of it is! But why do you think there’s a whole industry devoted to portraying women as naïve, and young, ever-willing to do anything to their own bodies or anyone else’s in order to please a man, and infinitely controllable and exploitable and sexually insatiable and ruled by their own lust? Because men need women like that to counter the fact that in real life, women are kind of scary! Sex is kind of scary! Because, in real life sometimes women do stuff that is different than the stuff men tell them to do or want them do, or they do the stuff that is what men tell them and want them to do but then they actually expect stuff in return and are maybe they even make it difficult! So the opposite of the female image in pornography is not victimization—it’s sexual agency. And I guess I’d believe in your condemnation of all that business if you had written a female character who went beyond victimhood. But you did not. So just say pussy already.
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Feb 18, 2008 Melissa rated it 2 of 5 stars

To get through a book where the "punk" characters say things like "cool beans" and "he's an Urkel" and "oh snap!"; where the strippers have hearts of gold and the former strippers grow up to be the best mothers; where the author unironically writes sentences like "the world was a pair of successfully removed breast implants"; and to still be engaged and even occasionally impressed by that book (when not prompted to delve into a long, exasperated rant about its many cliches) is a pretty big feat....more

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May 06, 2013 oriana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2010

This wasn't bad or anything, but it was fairly unsatisfying, overall. It's a loosely connected story of a handful of characters with pretty messy lives, all fucking up and being fucked up in Las Vegas. It's definitely not a Swingers type of Las Vegas; it's the grittier, grimier, non-touristy side, which I really liked reading about. And it's a good cross-section of people too: old and young, rich and homeless, stripper and real-estate agent, crust punks and comic geeks. But the plot? Eh. It's no...more This wasn't bad or anything, but it was fairly unsatisfying, overall. It's a loosely connected story of a handful of characters with pretty messy lives, all fucking up and being fucked up in Las Vegas. It's definitely not a Swingers type of Las Vegas; it's the grittier, grimier, non-touristy side, which I really liked reading about. And it's a good cross-section of people too: old and young, rich and homeless, stripper and real-estate agent, crust punks and comic geeks. But the plot? Eh. It's not a plot-driven book, which I can appreciate, but in the absence of a strong plot, the characters have to be worth traveling all the way through three hundred pages with. And that's this book's major downfall.

Although it's not what you'd think. Bock's characters are extremely detailed, but I think he tried a little too hard with them. You know how creative writing teachers will tell you to write down entire biographies for your characters, so you can get a better sense of who they are and what they would say and do? Well, it seems like Bock did that, but then instead of keeping that in a notebook by his computer as a reference, he just went ahead and crammed it all into the story. I mean, it's weird that I would complain that characters are too well drawn, but that's sort of what happens. We get these twenty-page digressions about one point in a character's history, or five pages on someone's motivations for getting a certain tattoo, or an entire chapter on someone's relationship with her mother.

And the worst part is that, for all this over-characterization, his characters manage somehow to still seem really unoriginal. We've got the stripper who lets her deadbeat boyfriend convince her to get breast implants. We've got the fat, balding, nerdy d-list comic book artist who spends all his time masturbating or in a private chatroom with his handful of loser friends. We've got the rebellious punk teenager (who BTW, despite being one of the primary characters in the book, is somehow never given a fucking name, and is always referred to, distractingly and cumbersomely, as "the girl with the shaved head").

All these characters, despite, as I said, having their minutia and backstories and motives and personalities exhaustively detailed and catalogued, are pretty damn cliché. Knowing all the ways in which the comic book guy was rejected in high school and college does not make him unique; it just makes him more typical, you know? So that was too bad. And even worse, actually, is that often the characters are still inconsistent! They say things that you know they wouldn't, in slang they're too old or too young for, or with vocabulary they wouldn't have. They act in incongruous ways. They spend time on things that don't really make sense for them to be paying attention to. They don't live up to who they've been drawn to be. So why did I waste so many pages getting to know who I thought they were?

Also the book was kind of jaggedly structured. The whole thing is leading up to one night when a twelve-year-old boy disappears, at a huge illegal punk show out in the desert. Over the three hundred pages, Bock maneuvers most of the various characters around so that they will all end up at this show together, but the timeline is not linear, so there's lots of stumbling around as you realize that this section must have happened months or years before the previous one, and trying to keep all the pieces together.

Also he leans way too hard on italics to do his work for him. In any given conversation, about a third of the things people say will be ital, and not like word by word, but their entire sentence or phrase. Which is hard to read and also causes the emphasis to lose its power. (less)

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Feb 27, 2008 John rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: do-not-want, american, 2008

It was by sheer force of will that I was able to finish this book. It's sad too because, like many here, I had high hopes for this much hyped debut. I don't believe that Bock's a lost cause by any means, but he's definitely got some refining to do before Random House or any other publisher so much as thinks about advancing him any more money. I primarily take issue with the unwieldy narrative, the disastrously underdeveloped characters, and Newell Ewing, the twelve year-old whose disappearance t...more

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Mar 09, 2008 LaDonna rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, complete_and_utter_crap

I don't know what, exactly, I expected when I started this book, but it certainly wasn't a slow-moving, leaden story.

None of the characters in this book are likeable, and they are all so stiff, it's hard to sympathize with them at all. It doesn't help that the cast is so huge... new characters are being introduced almost up until the very end. The author seems to treat his protagonists flippantly, and he doesn't even bother to give one of the characters a name, calling her simply "The girl with...more

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Feb 19, 2008 Matt rated it 1 of 5 stars

I feel like a sucker for having bought this. It's not very good. For Christ's sake, there are puns! I can't remember the exact phrasing, but one part read something like:

"I was being figurative, she said. To which Ponyboy responded with his middle figurative."

And his use of parlance – and particularly the use of the word "like" – is terrible and often embarrassing. The prose is all playful and buoyant and alliterative, and seems to undermine the subject matter. It's like a crystal chandelier in...more

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Apr 06, 2008 Jennifer March rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: someone not opposed to read something exceedingly dark and depressing.

Maybe this isn't the right time in my life, but I couldn't read this book. One night, I had trouble getting to sleep after reading several chapters. The subject matter is extremely disturbing--especially the depiction of the subculture of runaways living off the Strip. I finally gave up on page 350.
I also had trouble with Bock's writing. At times, the language is beautiful, but other sections read like a grad student experimenting with different devices. I could almost hear the workshop discuss...more

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Jul 18, 2008 Carsten rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am still reading this book, but so far i am quite impressed. i really love the character development and the language. I saw some reviews that didn't like the book, that couldn't find the las vegas in the novel, but while i think there is quite a bit about las vegas in the story the city is not the main character of this story, it is the background, but that background could also have been LA, Orlando, or Phoenix. this is just a little thought along the way ... as i said i am still reading it,...more

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Mar 12, 2008 Michael Shilling rated it 3 of 5 stars

Charles Bock can write well, so well that he has no excuse for several one-dimensional characters that no amount of detailed back-story can save from irrelevance, a very stock treatment of strippers and modern-primitive runaways, simplified cause-and-effect character development, and a focal point - this missing kid - who remains a complete cipher. That can't be the point. Is that the point? That said, the book is very fun to read, amazingly so considering that there's almost no plot, and what f...more

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Mar 23, 2009 Jacob rated it 3 of 5 stars

From all the hype and its inclusion on the NYT 100 Notable Books of 2008 list, I had high expectations for this book. Unfortunately, it failed to meet them. The novel contains some great parts and snippets of beautifully written passages which stand out in a narrative that otherwise is weighed down with too many disparate characters and storylines that Boch should have eliminated. The book’s redeeming factor is that there are a few compelling storylines that keep the reader involved enough to wa...more

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Aug 06, 2008 Kerfe rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I never thought I would be listing a book I would rate a "2" because usually I just don't finish a book I'd put in that category. And though I skimmed large chunks of this one, finding some parts almost unreadable and without any clear value to the story(s), I did finish. But I would not recommend anyone else do the same, despite all its glowing reviews.

My first reaction at the start of the book was: way too many writing classes and workshops, could use an editor with some sharp scissors. It got...more I never thought I would be listing a book I would rate a "2" because usually I just don't finish a book I'd put in that category. And though I skimmed large chunks of this one, finding some parts almost unreadable and without any clear value to the story(s), I did finish. But I would not recommend anyone else do the same, despite all its glowing reviews.

My first reaction at the start of the book was: way too many writing classes and workshops, could use an editor with some sharp scissors. It got a little better, but then it got way worse. It's like the author took all his ideas for stories and just threw them together. He did try to make connections, and the multiple-time-frame-point-of-view book can work, but there needs to be some underlying unity, and I just didn't ever feel it pull together in any meaningful way.

Too much of the writing is Bock saying "Look at me!"--it creates a wall between the writing and the story he is trying to tell. And just what IS that story anyway? I assume the book is supposed to be about runaways; there's a chapter near the end that describes various runaways which, while heartfelt and well-intentioned, feels totally false and disconnected from any of the story lines that he has been following previously. There is also information about runaway hotlines, etc, at the end of the book. And I think there's a good book about runaways in here. But there's also one about (among other things) the state of young manhood in America, the sex industry, clueless and fractured family relations, love and/or marriage, parenthood, exploitation, loss, disconnectedness, alienation, and the death of the American Dream. And maybe even one about a pawnshop in Las Vegas.

The most compelling characters/stories were not running away, but running in place, in circles, trying to work things out in the context of the lives they had--Lorraine and Kenny. And I thought the best writing in the book was about them as well. Lorraine's riff about the conflicting advice of parenting experts, her ruminations on her own parenting, were moving and true. And the section describing how Kenny would remember the defining action of his life through the lens of a multiplicity of possible future lives was equally wonderful.

This book is a mess. However, if Bock can focus and think smaller, he just might have something.(less)

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Mar 18, 2008 Al rated it 1 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this book, which was favorably reviewed on the front page of the NYT Sunday Book Review. I didn't.
Nearly every character is grotesque and pathetic; it's hard to believe that human beings could be as clueless as these people are. Maybe one or two, but all of them? It's difficult to get involved in a story where the characters are despicable AND their actions make no sense. It doesn't help that nearly every character is obsessed with sex, and many with pornography. Give m...more

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Apr 04, 2008 George rated it 3 of 5 stars

I first heard about this book in a Times profile of Bock. A big deal was made of how Charles Bock took 11 years to write this novel. This fact stuck with me throughout reading the book, as so much of it seems to have been so crafted and re-crafted to the point of being overwritten. There are references to very recent events, so it feels like he just kept going at it, revising, and refusing to let it go.

There are some truly fantastic parts of this book. Some of the subsections of the book's 7 ch...more

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May 29, 2008 Libby rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008-misses

I started this novel, and put it down about 150 pages later. This was approximately two weeks ago, and I do not feel particularly compelled to return to it. This lack of feeling on my part is especially disappointing to me, given the author's coverage in the New York Times Magazine (who doesn't love an underdog?), as well as the book's cover-review in the Times book section, and the fact that I bought it in hardcover (beautiful jacket, by the way: uncoated stock, great typography, and a judiciou...more

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Mar 10, 2008 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

Sigh, well, I read this for a book club and I have to be honest, it was sort of one of those books I had to make myself read. I liked parts of it a lot, and he is a good writer. I hated the kid, Newell. To be honest, I didn't really see why he would run away. That part didn't ring very true to me, but maybe the point is that you never really know and sometimes people run away for trivial reasons? I do feel though that the impact of that issue in the story (the runaways thing) would have been str...more

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Mar 01, 2008 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mostly liked it, although it struck me as very young, and not just because of the subject matter. The hardest part for me to get around was his trying to cram too much stuff in there, pushing his fascination with his characters before the reader has a chance to develop their own. When he pulls back, holds onto information and goes for a little less-is-more, it's usually really effective. So I guess my beef would be with the lack of variety where his pacing is concerned -- I think that could push...more

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Sep 15, 2008 Maggie rated it 4 of 5 stars

"I want them to see me dying. That way, they'll know I'm alive."

Beautiful Children is the kaleidoscopic tale of Las Vegas' dark underbelly, a place where underneath the lights, glitz and glamour lurks a bevy of downtrodden and desperate. Bock centers the bulk of his novel around one particular Saturday night - the night that twelve-year-old Newell Ewing disappeared, leaving behind only a single shoe abandoned in the middle of the desert. Starting with the story of Newell's disappearance, the nov...more

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May 30, 2008 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed-from-library

I liked and admired this book more than I loved it. It has aspirations to be a pretty big investigation and indictment of a culture that chews up dreamers and spits them out, but most of the characters are too thinly drawn to deepen it to that level. Instead, it's a very readable story about connections and loss, exploitation and love, fumbles, mistakes, accidents, viciousness, and hope, told in a non-linear structure that in a way is like reading reassembled fragments of a shattered mirror. In...more I liked and admired this book more than I loved it. It has aspirations to be a pretty big investigation and indictment of a culture that chews up dreamers and spits them out, but most of the characters are too thinly drawn to deepen it to that level. Instead, it's a very readable story about connections and loss, exploitation and love, fumbles, mistakes, accidents, viciousness, and hope, told in a non-linear structure that in a way is like reading reassembled fragments of a shattered mirror. In this case, the mirror is reflecting the neon and grit of Las Vegas, itself a major player in the story.

You can read a better summary of the plot and characters in a number of places, but the story centers on an adolescent boy, undergoing the usual rebellion, who disappears into the night and is never heard from again, and the people who cross paths with him and those around him. Although a major chunk of the story centers on a stripper with bigger aspirations whose boyfriend, a bike messenger for a porn distributor, tries to exploit her dreams in numerous ways and ends up tragically ruining multiple lives, the most moving story here is that is the missing boy's parents, and how they try to cope with the void of his loss.

I found the exploration of the parents' pain moving and real, while the exploration of the pain of the stripper and other characters sucked into the porn vortex struck me in a way I'm pretty sure the author didn't intend. The only time some of these emotionally deadened characters can feel desire is when viewing the worst kind of exploitative pornography, or the inhuman deformity of the stripper's body, and it's clear we're supposed to see how awful this is. But Bock describes these things in such explicit detail, trying to show the humanity beneath, the pain behind the eyes of the owner of the giant boobs, that these are some of the most, well, stirring passages in the book, which itself ends up producing an almost pornographic effect.

Still, it's a pretty accomplished book, and I very much appreciated that though you learn a lot about the characters and what happens to them, ends are not tied up neatly and many mysteries remain.(less)

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Feb 25, 2008 Mary McCoy rated it 4 of 5 stars

By turns harrowing, profane, pornographic, and tragic, Beautiful Children is not for the faint of heart. But, as a book about the darkest corners of Las Vegas, populated by a cast of disaffected and irreparably damaged urban nomads, how could it be anything else?

At the book's center is the disappearance of 12-year-old Newell Ewing, and the dissolution of his parents' marriage as they struggle to come to terms with their loss. The book's narrative jumps around in time, gradually revealing the eve...more By turns harrowing, profane, pornographic, and tragic, Beautiful Children is not for the faint of heart. But, as a book about the darkest corners of Las Vegas, populated by a cast of disaffected and irreparably damaged urban nomads, how could it be anything else?

At the book's center is the disappearance of 12-year-old Newell Ewing, and the dissolution of his parents' marriage as they struggle to come to terms with their loss. The book's narrative jumps around in time, gradually revealing the events of what may be Newell's last night, as well as the aftermath of his disappearance.

Pieced in as well are other characters' stories: a stripper named Cheri Blossom, her wounded and sinister boyfriend, Ponyboy, and a host of teenage runaways living on the streets of Vegas, including, most memorably, Lestat, a gaunt and delicate boy who has taken a pregnant runaway under his wing.

Gradually, the shadowy social network that holds these characters together becomes evident. The porno book store where Newell's father buys videos receives its deliveries from the former teen hustler turned porn courier, who goes home to sponge off of his stripper girlfriend. She goes to work, and performs a lap dance for the overweight, unloved comic book artist, who earlier that day, signed books and chatted with Newell and his gawky, older friend, Kenny.

We are all connected, however uncomfortable those connections may be.

Whatever their demons, Cheri, Ponyboy, and the Ewings all exercise some control over their place in the world. The runaways don't, and when Bock turns to them the book is at its most heart-breaking. In scenes that might turn exploitative and voyeuristic in another writer's hands, Bock unfolds the day-to-day survival of these street kids, and the things that keep them trapped there, with great empathy.

Also well-handled is Bock's portrayal of Kenny, a sexually confused teenage boy who clings to the edges of the visible world. An aunt who takes him in, artistic talent, his friendship with Newell are the only things keeping him from joining the ranks of the lost children, yet he doesn't fit anywhere else either. In the scenes describing his night out on the town with Newell, he's at once an outcast, a goony, unwanted mentor, a predator, a chum, but always on the verge of breaking into pieces. Bock allows him to hold together, and fall apart, in a way that's frustratingly open-ended, but also feels very real.

The book suffers some from its dizzying narrative structure, and more from rambling interior monologues and occasional prose freak-outs that tend to take the reader away from the plight of Bock's characters. However, it's these characters that ultimately bring the book back to earth -- each one is a fully realized masterpiece, and their stories and personal horrors make Beautiful Children a staggering and unforgettable work.
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Feb 17, 2008 Katie rated it 2 of 5 stars

I would liken the experience of reading this to being on a Tilt-A-Whirl that has gone on the loose: spinning feverishly in one direction, anxious pausing, spinning a bit in the other, and some heading very much off track, into, like, the log flume. I will echo criticism that Bock would have benefited from an editor and perhaps at the end avoided just about plainly stating the intended meaning of it all. Some of the pop / internet culture references were heavy-handed (I am thinking specifically o...more

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Feb 26, 2008 Michael Neill rated it 5 of 5 stars

I came to Beautiful Children in between reading two Cormac McCarthy novels, Blood Meridian and The Road. And while Bock [full disclosure: I know him] and McCarthy are as different as two writers can be, they have this in common: Their characters inhabit an America that devours its children. In fact, Bock's Vegas occupies a sort of halfway point in the timeline between Blood Meridian's bloody Old West and the post-Apocalyptic ruin of The Road. And there are moments in Beautiful Children that are...more

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Dec 07, 2008 Kathy rated it 1 of 5 stars

I didn't finish this book one of only two books that remember not finishing, read about 100 pages and decided it was too yucky,depressing and weird.

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Jan 27, 2008 Becca rated it 2 of 5 stars

I had big expectations for this one. Must say, that because it's big and unweildy and even ambitious doesn't make it a good novel. This is such a tough book to plod through and it delivers so little in the way of emotional impact or tension. I expected to see Las Vegas come alive and to feel something but it fell flat. I admit I haven't finished it...struggling to but will push through. I hope the ending pays off but I'm not so confident about that. Not sure what the hype is all about with this...more

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Feb 06, 2009 Don rated it 3 of 5 stars

I think this book has been seriously overrated (although not by the members of this website!).

The writing is overdone, particularly at the beginning--a first-time novelist showing what he can do. Over time, this settles down, but throughout the novel his writing verges on the excessive. I read this book immediately after reading Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises", and the contrast between Hemingway's spare writing style and Bock's excess is startling.

I also found it difficult to identify with the...more

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Dec 09, 2008 Sara rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction, mystery-adult, real-thinking-needed

This is the hot new book by a Las Vegas author. It's supposed to be the seminal Vegas book of our generation.

I didn't find it particularly Vegas-focused as I found it focused on parents and children. The story is about a group of interconnected people who occupy a range of positions in society. They're connected by all knowing a boy who disappears. There are intense, heartbreaking ruminations on both the previous lives and the aftereffects of the boy's disappearance, as well as some of the exte...more

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Feb 09, 2013 neveraworsename rated it 5 of 5 stars

A good, clean book is not this in terms of content, but in terms of style, in accuracy. There were moments of brilliant writing, specifically with the drug scenes, but more with characters who were fucked up and remained fucked up. The story is very character driven, which is important, in that at the end you do not like very many of them, would not invite them into your house without expecting something missing or broken or both, would not view them with absolute trust or even some trust, but y...more

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Mar 04, 2012 Kirstie rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People interested in homeless kids and depravity in Vegas

I picked up this book because there was a recommendation on the back from Jonathan Safran Foer that actually used to word epic. Well, this book was an epic disappointment for me, especially considering I value Foer's opinion and have found his novels to be much more profound than this effort. It makes me think Foer must be a friend of Bock and wanted to be positive but still, now I'm never going to trust a novel he recommends again.

I think if you're really curious about depravity and want to kn...more I picked up this book because there was a recommendation on the back from Jonathan Safran Foer that actually used to word epic. Well, this book was an epic disappointment for me, especially considering I value Foer's opinion and have found his novels to be much more profound than this effort. It makes me think Foer must be a friend of Bock and wanted to be positive but still, now I'm never going to trust a novel he recommends again.

I think if you're really curious about depravity and want to know about the seedy underground of Las Vegas pornography, gambling, illegal weapon sales, and runaways (all the way from the 12 year old with ADHD and a weakness for sugar to the pregnant druggie runaways), then this is your novel. If you already realized all this existed and this novel isn't telling you anything new, you're not really going to feel enlightened or like you learned anything by reading it. The book has some minor insights as it keeps switching from the stripper and her boyfriend to the dropouts and runaway kids to the parent of the 12 yr. old who has run away from home but overall I just didn't feel it was worth reading it's 400+ pages. I kept thinking the end would justify the means and that at the conclusion of the novel, I'd come away with a hint of the epic and exacting heart of it that Foer spoke of. Though the ending could have been much more of a colossal disappointment, I still felt a little like I'd wasted my time. If a book isn't going to be any kind of revelation, at the very least it should be short after all so I can get to the next novel that I might find more fulfilling much faster.

Also, I found the book to be quite racist in places...and I have to say, I think Bock himself was more trying to capture the essence of the spirit on the street but it still really offended me. Again, end didn't justify the means.

Anyhow, I digress..on a positive note, here are some quotes.

pg. 103 "Blokes who went out of their way to use the word bloke, calling each other at outrageous hours of the night and filling the dead air with whispers, who traded personalized mix tapes culled from hidden tracks on their favorite compact discs, delighted in the fact that the cassette tape was an ancient and disappearing species, and made sure to take special time and effort in their hunts through vintage shops for the forgotten postcard that would have a special, though not overt, significance to the receiver of the tape, thereby serving as the tape's perfect piece of cover art."

pg. 105 "The conspiracy of human frailty was the phrase her mother used. And this usually seemed to have an effect on the girl. Like some magic elixir had been released, the tension would break, the two would embrace..."

pg 337 "The sane sober businessman does not walk down the street talking out loud to himself but the crazy homeless man does. And this, Lestat understood, was one of the fundamental differences between the two. Over time Lestat had also grown to understand how the former becomes the latter. How all your thoughts and frustrations can inch closer and closer toward on uninterrupted rant. How the chasm between a person and the world around him can grow, a shell forming between the life you once had and the life you are leaving."

pg. 388 "A twelve year old is attracted to darkness. To special effects and sarcasm..."

pg. 407 "Each and every one of us moves toward fates we cannot possibly know. Each of us struggles against the pain of the world, even as we are doomed to join in."
(less)

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Dec 17, 2011 Christina (Reading Thru The Night) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, what-the-what

Was there any way to jump-start a libido quicker? Any other place on the planet that instantly offered the chance to reverse fortune and end losing streaks, the chance to set right a lifetime of disappointments? How could one read the gracious message - WELCOME TO FABULOUS LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - and feel anything but tingling anticipation? (22)

Have you ever watched the movie Happiness? It's a brilliant film, but one that I'm always reluctant to recommend because it is so unclean. Seriously. You kin...more Was there any way to jump-start a libido quicker? Any other place on the planet that instantly offered the chance to reverse fortune and end losing streaks, the chance to set right a lifetime of disappointments? How could one read the gracious message - WELCOME TO FABULOUS LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - and feel anything but tingling anticipation? (22)

Have you ever watched the movie Happiness? It's a brilliant film, but one that I'm always reluctant to recommend because it is so unclean. Seriously. You kinda wanna take a shower after viewing it and wash away the emotional cringe factor of humanity.

That's how I feel about Beautiful Children. I read it a couple of weeks go and couldn't decide how to review it, so I put it aside until something came to me. Well, weeks later, and still nothing. Nothing outside that unsettled feeling of devastation.

Despair. That's how I would define this novel. And it's beautifully done. It leaves a feeling of despair.

There are several lives that intersect in the hellish city of Las Vegas: a nerdy comic lovin' adolescent who has no friend (except), an awkward teenage artist who draws comics, a comic book illustrator who seems to have a problem with emotional connection and relies on lots of sex to counteract that, a stripper who plans on getting out (don't they all?), the stripper's boyfriend who is a dirty criminal (shocking, of course), and then a slew of homeless kids that come in and out of scenes.

The story begins with Newell, the nerdy kid whose only friend is the awkward teenage artist, and I suppose you could say that he is the impetus of the novel for he goes missing. That's how the story opens; Newell is gone. The chapters are told in segments of time all leading up to the missing child. And everything else is a smorgasbord of what happens in Vegas in a night.

Can I just tell you that there really aren't any likable characters? The closest would be Newell's parents, but that's mainly because they come across utterly wounded at the loss of their only child. How it affects their relationship with one and another and how each of them grieves are so real that I cannot help but feel pity for them.

The author does a wonderful job at exploring street life for teens and for strippers. I might not have *liked* the characters but I felt they were real.

If you are in a good place in your life then I would read this book. If you're already depressed with the world, move on please. (less)

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Jul 16, 2010 ICPL Staff Picks added it

Shelves: staff-picks-blog, fiction, john

Lincoln and Lorraine Ewings’s marriage is coming apart over the disappearance of their twelve ("and a half") year-old, self-absorbed horror of a son, Newell, who’s run away. Newell was last seen in the company of his inappropriately older buddy Kenny, who might remind you of Garth, from Wayne’s World. Kenny met Newell at the comic shop, where Kenny had finally screwed up his nerve to show his drawings to comic book artist Bing Beiderbixxe (cute, huh?). Bing came to Las Vegas for a weekend of par...more

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Jan 10, 2010 Alex rated it 2 of 5 stars

A promising premise that ultimately fails to deliver. Set against a group of runaway youths in Las Vegas, the novel offers an interesting look into the dredges of a city that's certainly full of them. While I wasn't expecting a romanticized or whimsical version of Vegas, Bock fails to explore some of his more peripheral characters. In the beginning of the book a comic book artist is having a signing at a local store where he encounters the central character of the book, a rebellious adolescent n...more

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