A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

My rating:

add to my books

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

by Dave Eggers

3.59 · rating details · 70,542 ratings · 5,906 reviews

National Bestseller

The literary sensation of the year, a book that redefines both family and narrative for the twenty-first century. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that mana...more

Paperback, 496 pages

Published February 13th 2001 by Vintage (first published 2000)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

Best Books of the Decade: 2000s

54th out of 3,128 books — 13,846 voters

Best Books of the 20th Century

213th out of 3,813 books — 20,617 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 99,107)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Apr 29, 2011

Tara rated it

Shelves: navel-gazing-fiction

One of my least favorite books of all time. I think it's a lot of b.s., to be honest. I cringed with frustration as I turned every page, and I only wanted to finish it so that I could say I found nothing redeeming. Oh sure, he was flashy and could draw a cheap laugh, but it was like admiration for bubbles: it went nowhere and said nothing. Henry James this is not (I don't love HJ, but I know talent when I see it and this is self-examination for voyeuristic purposes). I was disgusted with the tit...moreOne of my least favorite books of all time. I think it's a lot of b.s., to be honest. I cringed with frustration as I turned every page, and I only wanted to finish it so that I could say I found nothing redeeming. Oh sure, he was flashy and could draw a cheap laugh, but it was like admiration for bubbles: it went nowhere and said nothing. Henry James this is not (I don't love HJ, but I know talent when I see it and this is self-examination for voyeuristic purposes). I was disgusted with the title when I first heard of it; though I can see the attempt at self-ridicule, eh, nope, he's pretty satisfied with himself. I then heard so much lovely stuff about it, which worries me now in retrospect, but I tried it with an open mind: Nope Buddy!

Why even go into the hundred reasons why it sucks, since the author is such a vapid creature full of style and lacking substance - the book doesn't really merit an intellectual attack. Really, I think it's every single thing that is wrong with certain aspects of modern literature. Foster Wallace and Eggers can suck my metaphorical dick, since they seem to exist for nothing else but their own pretension. Way to reveal modern angst boys, sorry that people a lot smarter did it better a hundred years ago, and said something relevant for people who weren't self-absorbed fops. I look forward to a future world cataclysm in which this book can be lost, and something worthwhile take its place in the literary canon. (Also, I apologize to all the people who really sincerely love this book. I know I like some things that can be deemed pretty trivial. And who knows, maybe the author is a nice enough guy. I just, I gotta say it, I really can't stand this book, and wish there were better books around to take away some of its appeal. Art for the ego just doesn't seem enough).

*since i've written my original review i've gotten lots of angry messages. first off, my respect for a book does not increase when its fans e-mail me to tell me Just How Wrong I Am for Not Loving it to Death. i've been told what a hipster i am for disliking it (?), and how much i must love the sitcom 'frazier'. again: ? Whoa. This review was just my opinion. I read this book seven years ago, when i was 18 years old. I did not like it. It is not what I would describe as good literature. I thought the author was playing tricks with language, but unlike a lot of other authors, he was doing it to be showy instead of pursuing where words can go and the impact they can have. I did think they were bubbles, and bubbles may be nice, bubbles can be fun, but bubbles don't last. I just don't think it warrants the place in literature it currently seems to. If you have a problem with this review not being specific enough (as I've been told), let me know and i'll be happy to write you an eight page paper telling you why it's ridiculous for thinking a goodreads review should be the end-all of insights into a book.

**For the record, I think there's nothing "Cool Kid" about this review. Define 'Cool.' Pointless exercise. I love Justin Timberlake. I just don't think this was a great book like Timberlake is an irresistible performer.

My memories of the book have grown hazy, and I did write my first review while living in New Orleans. I think I slammed down a drink at Igors at 3 am while waving Flannery or Walker or Eudora in the air and swore that Franzen and Eggers were my metaphysical enemies and one day I would read Wittgenstein deeply enough to make seemingly-profound arguments about nonsense culture-consumers like "Stop making literature a habit of stylistic consumption and read something and decide if it's true." I remain too lazy, but still, I think we should read literature with an idea of the Good, and how to pursue it. My always-reforming vision has been consistent about thinking of this not as a charming memoir but as a lazy memoir without real love or value. I wish I could see what so many think they do, but it remains mirror-playing to me.. Maybe most of this is late-night fighting-Tara b.s., but I still think my absurd perspective is still more concerned about what is good and lovely and true than the steady narcissism of AHWOSG.(less)

like 122 likes

· see review

Jan 15, 2008

Matt rated it

Recommends it for: wannabe hipsters

as a huge douglas coupland fan, i thought i might enjoy 'a heartbreaking work...' i should've known better. i tried to read 'you shall know our velocity' last year and found it entirely unreadable. i gave up after 200 pages of nonsense. several friends raved about 'ahwoasg,' so i thought, 'ok, i'll give eggars another try.' again, i was horribly disappointed.

the pros: yes, it's funny at times and very *honest* (though can we take eggars at his word? never trust an autobiography). i ...more

like 45 likes

· see review

Sep 12, 2008

Polly rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: top-eleven

look. it's cool to hate on dave eggers.

it's *so cool* to be post-dave-eggers, and talk about how you didn't really like this book all that much, and it's even cooler to totally hate this book. it's like a coolness interview question. "did you like his book?" "yeah, I really did." "well, we can't be friends with *you*..."

this is just like those hipsters who don't like justin timberlake. fuck you, hipsters. that new album is solid gold....more

like 123 likes

· see review

Aug 26, 2007

Jeff rated it

Recommends it for: People who are nearsighted... I mean metaphorically speaking.

Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave. What can I say? I can sort of remember picking up this book in a bookstore somewhere and reading the first few pages… now, not the first few pages of the story, but I’m talking about the copyright page. Freaking Dave Eggers is writing his novel starting with the copyright page? Wild man, wild man!
So, I read it. I liked it. It was this nonstop stream of consciousness kind of thing, which I found a bit comforting, cause that’s how I think. I mean, of course t...moreDave, Dave, Dave, Dave. What can I say? I can sort of remember picking up this book in a bookstore somewhere and reading the first few pages… now, not the first few pages of the story, but I’m talking about the copyright page. Freaking Dave Eggers is writing his novel starting with the copyright page? Wild man, wild man!
So, I read it. I liked it. It was this nonstop stream of consciousness kind of thing, which I found a bit comforting, cause that’s how I think. I mean, of course that’s how I think, cause my mind will just sometimes ramble on and on and on about nothing in particular. It could be about donuts that my mind is thinking about, it could be about women. Maybe it’s about basketball. I miss Michael Jordan. 1992 was the year they first made the Dream Team for the U.S. Basketball Olympic team. Do you remember all 12 members? I do. Swear to God I’m not looking this up: Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, David Robinson, Clyde Drexler, Chris Mullins, Patrick Ewing, and the one college player Duke’s very own Christian Lattner (I don’t know how to spell his name… okay, I looked it up- it’s Laettner) And really what ever happened to that guy? How did he get on the dream team? One shot? He hit the winning shot in an NCAA basketball tournament. That’s it. That’s all he ever did. Shaq O’neill was waiting in the wings. Hell Isaiah Thomas could have been that last player, but apparently Michael Jordan didn’t want Isaiah on the team. Who knows if that rumor is true? Certainly not me.
Anyway, a friend of mine read the book and she didn’t like it so much. Which almost made me question how I felt about the book, but then I thought, “No, stay with your belief system man! Don’t let someone else’s opinion sway you.” But that did get me to thinking if there were books that men preferred over women, and vice versa. I don’t mean sexist misogynistic type books, but I’m talking the writing style specifically. Is there a cadence to writing that men prefer? Is there a cadence that women prefer? Maybe someone should write a thesis about that. I know it’s not going to be me. I didn’t major in psychology, though looking back I wish I would have because there were so many cute girls in the psychology department.
In conclusion, I enjoyed this book.
(less)

like 34 likes

· see review

Feb 23, 2008

Karina rated it

Shelves: memoir-biography

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. I was reading this book and around page 237 (or was it 327? fuck), I figured it out- he's talking to ME. He wrote this book for me. Dave Eggers looked into the future and saw that I would want to read a self-referential, self-satisfying memoir. He knew that I would be trying to figure stuff, being in my twenties and all, and while not dealing with the enormity of losing both parents and having to rear a young sibling, I would have my own shit to work through. He. fu...more

like 43 likes

· see review

Mar 21, 2008

Bryon rated it

Recommends it for: Anyone

I had problems with Dave Eggers for a long time. Having never read a word he'd written, I immaturely thought I had every right to hate him. He was young, successful, and adored by critics. That was enough right there. When it first came out, I would see AHWOSG in the bookstore and grimace at it (more than once, I even gave it the evil eye). My loathing was out of sheer jealousy. I recognized it as such back then, but still carried on. It's hard to let go of things sometimes.

OK. Fast ...moreI had problems with Dave Eggers for a long time. Having never read a word he'd written, I immaturely thought I had every right to hate him. He was young, successful, and adored by critics. That was enough right there. When it first came out, I would see AHWOSG in the bookstore and grimace at it (more than once, I even gave it the evil eye). My loathing was out of sheer jealousy. I recognized it as such back then, but still carried on. It's hard to let go of things sometimes.

OK. Fast forward three or four years. I still have a lot of pent up animosity for those writers who are so far ahead of me. However, this fear, thinly cloaked as a juicy eccentricity has dissipated a great deal upon reading Eggers' triumphant, naked, brutally pure and dramatically veracious window into a life bereft of normalcy.

What is normalcy? Nobody knows (and quite frankly, nobody should care), but I'll tell you what it's not: having to deal with the death of both your parents within mere months of each other. That just doesn't happen to people. On the rare and awful occassions when it does, the children involved are devastated. It happened to Eggers and his siblings. When his mother died, he was left to share custody of his younger brother Toph. Still just a child, Toph grew up under the sometimes bizarre, always concerned eye of his older brother Dave.

The center of AHWOSG is truly the great and hilarious relationship Eggers has with Toph. To try to describe how they both grew up together in the strange and bumpy post-parental freedom-for-all (with strict rules of obtaining said freedom) would be detrimental to the experiences you can have in Eggers' world. So we won't venture further. Rest assured, there's a seal-tight bond there, one few can probably relate to.

Smirking just on the borders of the author's fatherly/brotherly/friendly/loving/do-right-for-the-little-jerk attitude is the fully-aware-of-everything-that-is-and-is-not persona that he is constantly invoking and daring to take him just one step further... just to the brink... just to push him off. His emotions are bloody rare, like a T-Bone rippling with E. coli. His running, inner monologue and occasional tabooed thoughts are cut from his heart with a dull spork and served to the reader à la mode--as if the sweet, cold vanilla sub-thought could lighten the mood. It does. And his words never fail to render a heartbreaking, poetic, screaming justice for his soul.

I ate it up. I wanted more. I swallowed my jealousy and loved it.(less)

like 29 likes

· see review

Feb 04, 2008

Meredith rated it

Recommends it for: anyone

Recommended to Meredith by: Olga

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eggers has created something raw, graphic, gritty, something real and it is an emotional sometimes painful read. It is the way in which he deals with grief that appeals to me most. His crazy stream of consciousness writing style is so refreshingly real. At times it seems you are reading his thoughts, unedited. Instead of wallowing in grief for the entire novel he refuses to confront his emotions and whirls around like a frisbee comically avoiding...moreI LOVED THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eggers has created something raw, graphic, gritty, something real and it is an emotional sometimes painful read. It is the way in which he deals with grief that appeals to me most. His crazy stream of consciousness writing style is so refreshingly real. At times it seems you are reading his thoughts, unedited. Instead of wallowing in grief for the entire novel he refuses to confront his emotions and whirls around like a frisbee comically avoiding the world.

What got to me about this book was that while I read about his life after his parents' death, while I laughed at his jokes and listened to his rants, while I tried to make sense of his rambles and his pointless thoughts mentioned it seemed only to avoid thinking of anything important...I could still sense the emotions he was trying to hide.

I myself will grow cynical while saddened. Humor can be a great way to cope with grief. When I lost my grandfather and then was unable to attend his funeral, I cried at first...then I laughed until I was crying again. It all seemed so absurd. That I could get on the plane and yet one small weather issue prevented me from saying goodbye to someone so dear to me...Over the next few days I tried to not think about his death, tried to fill my mind with thoughts about anything else, tried to engage myself in other activities, I laughed, I joked with friends...I didn't want to cope with the grief. I ranted about how much life sucked, or what I saw was wrong with this fucked up world. And then once everyone left me to myself I cried. I broke down and screamed and cursed God and everything around me and cried. Only when I finally dealt with his death and accepted it, did I find some sort of peace. This book for me expressed the same raw emotions.

It is his awareness of how this is destroying him, his acknowledgment of how angry he is with the world around him for giving him a difficult life that makes this book so appealing. He attempts to poke fun at himself to soften the story, to make it less tragic, maybe to make it seem that he has been able to move on...yet at heart this is simply the heartbreaking story of a young man who has lost his parents and is left to raise his brother alone. At the end after all of the glitz, glitter and shall I say clutter he fills the novel with he finally gets down to what he wanted to express all along...

The last several pages of raw emotion tear at you. You see his soul, raw and bleeding. No this isn't a pity me, poor me situation, I believe this is a cry of desperation, a moment of insanity. He has entertained the reader, made a joke even about his situation, presented himself as arrogant and self centered...but I truly believe it was all an act...to protect himself. Because that is what we do as humans, we hide our emotions any way we know how, and we protect ourselves to the best of our ability. It is better to laugh things off than to cry and indicate our weakness and fear of death.

My heart broke for him and upon reading the words finally finally finally after his rant about what he was trying to show us, what he was trying to entertain us with and how he had given everything, I knew it was true.

This book is incredible. Skim over the middle if needed. He clutters it, I think intentionally however. You will laugh, cry and then think why is he rambling about people running nude on a beach...but it is a wonderful novel and well worth the read.

***excuse the length but I cannot express enough how much this book meant to me and touched my life.
(less)

like 21 likes

· see review

Aug 07, 2007

Clare rated it

I disliked so very much about this book. The grating self-awareness, the oh-I'm-so-clever stream of consciousness asides, the indescribably tedious discussion of his magazine work. But the heart of the book, the story of Eggers and his young brother trying to be each other's whole family after the death of their parents, is genuinely sad and funny all at once, a difficult feat to accomplish. I wish he'd stuck to telling that story instead of trying so hard to make me think he's a staggering g...more

like 34 likes

· see review

May 21, 2009

Kelly rated it

Shelves: memoirs, books-that-never-end, narcissistic, want-those-hours-back

Before I picked up this book I had heard endless tales of how wonderfully smart and funny this book was, how terrific the writing was and how the originality would slap me in the face like a cool wind on a summer's day. They were wrong. I hated this book like The Cure hates happiness.

I understand writer's have their own style, and that is what, in and of itself, separates them from all the others. But, seriously, we learn paragraph breaks for a reason. It gives the mind's eye a brea...more

like 17 likes

· see review

May 05, 2009

Choupette rated it

Recommended to Choupette by: the world. fuck you, world.

Shelves: own-or-access, 2009

Let's begin with the title: "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius". All that crap in the preface can go to hell; this is the prime theme of the book. Arrogant as all hell? No! Well, yes, but what it's really talking about is the very human desire to find meaning in things that seem too cruel, too illogical, too unfair to have actually happened. We want our suffering to be divinely inspired because then there would be a point to it. Our pain must be beautiful, profound, perfect. In...more

like 36 likes

· see review

Oct 14, 2008

Erin added it

omg OMG! which one of you was it?!?!? which one of you snekay little emo kids managed to pull this off!?

you know, wilcan's level 400 creative writing class? last semester of my senior year of college? we had the classroom in Times Hall that didn't get air conditioning! i passed out in the middle of class right before spring break? that one time, when the health center prescribed me the wrong medication for my bronchitis!!!! don't you remember!?

well i do. don't th...more

like 20 likes

· see review

Sep 06, 2007

Amanda rated it

Clearly, this is a polarizing book. All I'll add is that the first time I read it, sometime in the middle of college, I had all of the negative reactions I've read here. It was sometimes funny, and sad and beautiful and all that, but mostly it was an autobiography by an asshole who was full of himself and I just didn't see why I should care, why I should keep reading.

And then I read it again a few years later. And I don't really know what happened in between exactly. Maybe I became ...more

like 15 likes

· see review

Aug 08, 2007

Eric C rated it

I was sick of Eggers'
self-absorbed schtick after three pages of the preface. But, the cover read
"pulitzer prize finalist" (among other superlatives), so I forged on. I'd made
it to page 33 of the actual text (without laughing once) when I noticed Eggers'
picture on the back cover. He reminded me of some people I'd met when I was
working at a startup company during the early internet boom. They were so full
of themselves with their free-wheeling style...more

like 12 likes

· see review

Jun 14, 2007

Punk rated it

Shelves: non-fiction, memoir

Non-fiction(ish). Dave Eggers' parents are dead, and now he's got to take care of his little brother. This is their sort-of-true story.

Because I'm a geek, Dave Eggers endears himself to me just by his modifications to the verso, which include his placement on a sexual-orientation scale of 1 to 10 and the reminder that the military-industrial-entertainment complex really has little power over us as individuals. The book suffers from all the weaknesses Eggers warns us about in the note...more

like 10 likes

· see review

May 16, 2007

David rated it

Recommends it for: non geniuses

Mr. Eggers has a genius for two things: finding and publishing some of the more exciting writers working today; turning "Weeee! Weeee! Look at me!! I am beautiful and so good to my little brother!!! Weeeee! Don't you want to touch me?" into 496 pages.

like 10 likes

· see review

Jun 23, 2008

Rebecca rated it

I've been reading this book for about three months now and I just can't bring myself to finish it (and I only have 17 pages left). This is the first book I've read by Dave Eggers, and I've been told not to judge his other works based on this memoir. Memoirs can be tricky beasts after all.

In the beginning I really enjoyed this book. Eggers actually did have an interesting life and he tells his story in stream-of-consciousness (sp?), which I found to be really interesting...at first. It ...more

like 9 likes

· see review

Oct 09, 2007

Steve rated it

Plenty of clever people have written about A.H.W.O.S.G., but Eggers himself may have done it best with the preface, acknowledgements, and even the title of his book. It all portends a memoir that is sad, funny, smart, and honest. He shrewdly pre-empts criticism about his self-obsession by professing to be self-conscious about it – a kind of meta-awareness that’s somehow more appealing. It’s clear before the book begins that he’s got that Gen X hipster axe to wield for sarcastic, irreverent pu...more

like 10 likes

· see review

Oct 13, 2008

Shannon rated it

Shelves: own, lulz, memoirs, favorites

The book isn't simple- it's complex, and powerful, beautiful, hilarious, and above all: is feels utterly sincere.

Obviously the title is hyperbolic.. but it's not completely ironic/innacurate either..

Eggers has a great little thing about Irony/the title being ironic/the book being ironic.. in the added section of the book "Mistakes we knew we were making". In which he's like,"you fuckers don't know what irony means; let me explain"*. It's all true. *Thi...more

like 6 likes

· see review

Nov 19, 2011

Noce rated it

Shelves: narrativa-americana

L'opera super-accessoriata di un formidabile concessionario

Eggers in una precedente vita è probabile facesse il venditore porta a porta. Forse dei Folletto della Vorwerk, oppure di assicurazioni. Nella prossima vita invece, potrebbe reincarnarsi in Aldo Busi, che in un'intervista confidò di essere il migliore scrittore mai esistito al mondo.

Tolti i veli e i drappi troppo “sugosi” dell'autocompiacimento e dell'autocelebrazione, che vi avverto, oltre che nel titolo ritrove...more

like 3 likes

· see review

Aug 07, 2011

Philip rated it

Recommended to Philip by: Rossa

Shelves: jordabecker-book-club

I've been writing a paper on student accountability for the past three days. All I've been able to think about is writing the review for this book. I'm at my stalling breaking point. Also, it's 12:11 AM, so my brain's about fried.

Which is to say, if you're still reading this review, you may want to stop now. It could get a little crazy. How crazy? I'm sure we're probably talking Fear Dot Com crazy. What a web-review you've stumbled across. (And I don't mean "fear dot com...more

like 6 likes

· see review

Jan 09, 2008

Núria rated it

Recommends it for: huérfanos, fatalistas, autoreflexios patológicos, escritores,

Shelves: prestados, 2008, 5-favoritos, literatura-en-ingles, siglo-xx

Después de un primer capítulo como el que nos da Dave Eggers en 'Una historia conmovedora, asombrosa y genial' supe que, viniera lo que viniera después, iba a querer con desesperación este libro, aunque después viniera la prosa más infumable que hubiera podido leer en mi vida. Porque el primer capítulo habla de mí, de nosotros. Es lo que había estado esperando leer toda mi vida (o como mínimo desde los 18 años). Nadie antes lo había contado bien. La diferencia es que Eggers es sincero. La difere...moreDespués de un primer capítulo como el que nos da Dave Eggers en 'Una historia conmovedora, asombrosa y genial' supe que, viniera lo que viniera después, iba a querer con desesperación este libro, aunque después viniera la prosa más infumable que hubiera podido leer en mi vida. Porque el primer capítulo habla de mí, de nosotros. Es lo que había estado esperando leer toda mi vida (o como mínimo desde los 18 años). Nadie antes lo había contado bien. La diferencia es que Eggers es sincero. La diferencia es que Eggers me entiende. No se olvida de nada. Incluye la tristeza y el sentido del humor en su justa medida. La resignación y la rabia en su justa proporción. El alivio y la frustración en su justa combinación. Lo que cuenta no sólo es verdad. Es mi verdad. En este primer capítulo Eggers cuenta como su familia se desintegra cuando su madre y su padre mueren de cáncer con sólo unos tres meses de diferencia. Y leerlo fue reconfortante y doloroso a la vez. Y es así como tienen que ser los libros.

Luego viene la parte en que él, con sólo unos veinte años, se tiene que cuidar de su hermano, que aún es sólo un niño pequeño. Pero aún hay otra línea argumental, que es el auge y caída de una revista en la que Eggers participó, 'Might', que pretendía ser la voz de la Generación X. La obra no sigue una narrativa lineal, sino que más bien presenta una serie de escenas/personajes que sirven para dar una visión caleidoscópica. El tema de la muerte de los padres es un tema recurrente, que va apareciendo constantemente, pero sobre todo al final, de modo que acaba siendo una obra circular, que termina retomando el principio.

Se trata de un libro autobiográfico, pero no sabemos hasta qué punto es no-ficción y hasta qué punto es ficción. El mismo libro se dedica a analizar esta cuestión. Y es que es un libro altamente (auto)reflexivo, que constantemente, de forma directa, reflexiona sobre su naturaleza, cita sus temas principales, analiza el significado de sus metáforas y su simbolismo, e incluso reflexiona acerca de estas reflexiones. Lo mismo le pasa al protagonista: es alguien altamente autoreflexivo, que siempre se dedica a analizar y a dotar de significado incluso sus actos más triviales, y después, cómo no, reflexiona acerca de estas reflexiones, analiza por qué siempre tiene esta necesidad de analizarlo absolutamente todo.

Aunque el resto de capítulos no los quiera con desesperación como el primero, los sigo queriendo. Porque es una obra original en su forma, pero nunca deja de preocuparse por el fondo y nunca deja de ser sincera. Antes que nada el libro habla del vampirismo y el exhibicionismo que comporta la escritura. De la necesidad de compartir el dolor, pero a la vez la necesidad de que nos dejen solos con nuestro dolor. Del fatalismo que nos embarga cuando nos ha sucedido una desgracia: si nos ha pasado una vez, nos va a pasar más veces. De la hipocondría, del convencimiento que vamos a morir jóvenes. De vernos empujados a actuar como adultos antes de que nos sintamos preparados. De lo difícil que es combinar las obligaciones familiares con la libertad personal. De huidas hacia delante y autodestrucción. Del miedo que acarrea la responsabilidad (¿y si mi hermano se convierte en un psicópata por mi culpa?) De ser un niñato inmaduro pero creerse alguien extremamente original, irreverente, especial e incomprendido. De arrogancia y sentimiento de culpabilidad. Pero sobre todo habla de como la muerte y la desgracia siempre están a nuestro alrededor y no podemos hacer nada para impedirlas. Y lo mejor es que lo hace todo desde una distancia irónica, pero a la vez des de la sinceridad. Lo mejor es que es divertido, pero a la vez profundo. (less)

like 5 likes

· see review

Dec 16, 2007

Z rated it

I remember reading this book in Biology 11 -- either reading it before class started, or having it out on my desk, or something -- and my teacher, who was this sort of delightfully insane man who was retiring at the end of that year and so knew he could get away with anything, and once spent twenty minutes at the start of class telling us about the ABBA cover band he'd been to see last night, and how the music of ABBA uplifted the soul, and so on -- seeing the title and telling me never to be br...more

like 7 likes

· see review

Aug 22, 2007

Jean rated it

A very sad story told in Eggers' hyper-conscious, cynical, and hilarious voice. As any high self-monitor knows, humans are capable of living entirely in their own heads. Eggers, who tells his own story, inhabits and analyzes his own thoughts to ridiculous heights; the result is a really funny and honest look at tradgedy and his family. It was pretty heartbreaking alright, but for me the saddest part wasn't the death of the author's parents or the shitstorm that follows. It was the space that...more

like 5 likes

· see review

Mar 21, 2007

mary rated it

i never finished this book, and i don't particularly plan to.

i mean sure, it's funny, it's sad, it has its moments. i got involved with the graphic and emotionally staggering descriptions of his parents. and this guy has had a pretty intense life if this is his memoir. recognition must be given for that. fine. but the preface? the rules? dear lord. the last thing i need to read is the self-indulgent self-obsessed tale of a self-centric and self-aggrandizing smart kid. i have enough...more

like 9 likes

· see review

Oct 31, 2007

Caris rated it

Recommends it for: the stronghearted, the proud, the profound and the profoundly damaged

Shelves: sparklingglimpsesatcommongrace, iheart

Alrighty. I provide an outline to what I learned from this book:
1. Hooked from the start, I plowed through the first eleventy-whatever chapters under the fluorescents at Barnes and Noble and whilst crossing the autumnal Smoky Mountains in the backseat of roommates' cars. I was satisfied. I was amazed, heartbroken, staggered...Eggered!
2. I continued my literary pillage of Egger's twenties while couchridden with a cold. I dreamed of my Grandmother Wilma that night. Cancer killed ...moreAlrighty. I provide an outline to what I learned from this book:
1. Hooked from the start, I plowed through the first eleventy-whatever chapters under the fluorescents at Barnes and Noble and whilst crossing the autumnal Smoky Mountains in the backseat of roommates' cars. I was satisfied. I was amazed, heartbroken, staggered...Eggered!
2. I continued my literary pillage of Egger's twenties while couchridden with a cold. I dreamed of my Grandmother Wilma that night. Cancer killed her, and Eggers let me realize that I don't think enough about it. Eggers demands we look our killers, literal and figurative, in the face...but starts to lose his point amid the blah blah blah about Might. Man, how can he still not embrace the death of that magazine?!? He relies to much on our common experience that our dearest brainchildren are continuously in danger from without. By the end, it seems he's all but forgotten that he was murdering Might from the beginning! (e.g. using his fervor to a concerted, appreciable end, then bashing the results & by extension all his hard efforts...like the "Screw those Idiots" stickers).
3. Grabbing a chapter here and there when I could to finish the thing, I have had too much time to ponder between passages. I began to anticipate that Eggers would end up angry at the universe and *imagine!* self-centered, cliffhanging.
4. Last Chapter SPOILER : He does. And sorta ruins the effect. The realness I so appreciated at the start is plastic and fluff, vanity and profanity, a whine undeserving of a listener. Maybe he meant to do that...but I need something with which to compare. OR I need to meet the guy face to face. Oddly, I'd say it's my cynical side (as opposed to the usual ingenuous side) longing for just-enough redemption to be hidden in the back cover, written in invisible ink after "finally, finally, finally." Eggers offered me the veracious carefully veiled within the maudlin (a combo I believe God as my Lord is fond of), but the truth does NOT out; Eggers puts his happy mask back on & with $39, 567.68 check in tow) goes back into hiding! Argh! Well, sorta argh. I guess.
The friend who was, unknowingly, the final impetus to me reading AHWOSG tells me that there's a version with an alternate ending...and I could perhaps borrow it from him (bless him!). Gladness. Check back for my re-review where I don't doubt I will have changed my mind and added that extra half-star.(less)

like 4 likes

· see review

Sep 15, 2007

Cecilia rated it

So this book is bulletproof. I finished A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers a few weeks ago, but for some reason wasn’t motivated to write about it. I went in with high expectations (always a mistake), and came out thinking it was great, but with vague, nagging sense of disappointment that I cannot fully articulate. I love McSweeney’s and since just about everyone else under 30 living in San Francisco has apparently already read the book, I had heard raves from s...more

So this book is bulletproof. I finished A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers a few weeks ago, but for some reason wasn’t motivated to write about it. I went in with high expectations (always a mistake), and came out thinking it was great, but with vague, nagging sense of disappointment that I cannot fully articulate. I love McSweeney’s and since just about everyone else under 30 living in San Francisco has apparently already read the book, I had heard raves from several different places, including how cool it was to read about parts of the city they knew and to read Eggers describe doing things my very friends also do. Also there was that big ol’ “Pullitzer Prize Finalist” bubble on the cover. So that was the hype, but it did not help that contemporaneously with reading I kept stumbling across pieces, well, making fun of Eggers.

Back to the bulletproof aspect - this book is (brilliantly) so knowingly self-aware of just how incredibly self-indulgent it is. So before you can even make that point (which, well, it’s still sitting there), it’s been made and brushed aside. But it’s an autobiography and those are inherently self-indulgent. And as one preface in some autobiography I read in my first history course in college (I think it was by a slave - the book not the course), every autobiography has to be taken with a grain of salt because people cannot be expected to recollect perfectly nor can they be expected to not exaggerate.

My favorite part, to be honest, was what comes before the proper book - the copyright page, preface, acknowledgments, etc. They are the longest most consistent stretch of amusement in the book. The first part, about Eggers’ parents dying, floors you with the honest, open, gory details. The relationship with his brother Toph is fun to read because he depicts it with such adoration, and his becoming a parent is so, well, heartwarming even if his life as a twentysomething like that of other twentysomethings is a study in self-absorption and know-it-all-ism. The brushes with fame (Adam Rich, Vince Vaugn, Mr. T, Judd from The Real World San Francisco, a girl from Dangerous Minds) add an interesting twist, but make him even less ordinary. Overall, it was a good, fun read.
(less)

like 4 likes

· see review

Aug 22, 2007

Anne rated it

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: loved-it

When I first read this book, I remember thinking that if I was ever going to write a book, it would probably sounds a whole lot like this. It was a pleasant tingle of recognition -- Eggers' internal monologue (at least, the one he writes with) is very similar to mine (at least, the one I write with).

The endless self-reflectiveness and self-awareness (and awareness of the self-awareness, in that I-know-that-you-know-that-I-know-that-you-know-etc.-ad-nauseum kind of way) thing can be a...more

like 4 likes

· see review

Aug 28, 2007

liz rated it

Shelves: literary, life-stories, non-fiction

Heartbreaking? Kind of. Staggering? Yeah, in a couple different senses of the word. Genius? Well...

It's that David Sedaris, kind-of-a-memoir sort of thing. It's about him, and also about his younger brother, Toph, and about what it's like to be young, and afraid. I still think it has one of the best titles ever, even if it doesn't entirely live up to it.

These things, details, stories, whatever, are like the skin shed by snakes, who leave theirs for anyone to see. ...more

like 3 likes

· see review

Jul 04, 2007

Gary rated it

In a word, this book was great. Relentless, reabable, relentlessly readable, it falls short of five stars for just two reasons: 1) as Eggers himself says, the middle section is the weakest, often failing to keep my interest with its anecdotes regarding Might magazine, and 2) its stylistic experiments occasionally distract from the emotional impact of the story itself.

That said, I really must emphasize my enjoyment, even awe in reading the book. One of the reviews on the inside cove...more

like 3 likes

· see review

Jul 26, 2007

Kim rated it

· review of another edition

I know everyone hates Eggers and calls him a douchebag but, two things:

I saw him do a reading a few years ago at the Lisner and he was sort of slowly thrusting his pelvic area at the podium as he read. Almost absentmindedly. In the same way that fellow dorkus Travis Morrison dances to impregnate the audience, he read to impregnate the audience. I can't help but find that endearing. Because I am a perv.

Oh, the book: Yeah. It really speaks to me. 'Cause I'm an orphan too. A...more

like 6 likes

· see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 3303 3304 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Bear with it.	48	347	Nov 29, 2011 12:02am
Don't bear with it.	19	175	Nov 28, 2011 11:57pm

combine
Other Editions (33)

More editions...

Genres

Book Club

80 users

Literature

75 users

Humor

68 users

Contemporary

61 users

Novels

51 users

Biography Memoir

38 users

Literature > American

39 users

Adult

26 users

Young Adult > Coming Of Age

18 users

Humor > Funny

18 users

See top shelves...

Readers Also Enjoyed

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Pin It

About Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers is the author of six previous books, including his most recent, Zeitoun, a nonfiction account a Syrian-American immigrant and his extraordinary experience during Hurricane Katrina and What Is the What, a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award. That book, about Valentino Achak Deng, a survivor of the civil war in southern Sudan, gave birth to the Valentino Achak Deng F...more

More about Dave Eggers...

Books by Dave Eggers

More…

Trivia About A Heartbreaking W...

3 trivia questions

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from A Heartbreaking Work o...

“I like the dark part of the night, after midnight and before four-thirty, when it's hollow, when ceilings are harder and farther away. Then I can breathe, and can think while others are sleeping, in a way can stop time, can have it so – this has always been my dream – so that while everyone else is frozen, I can work busily about them, doing whatever it is that needs to be done, like the elves who make the shoes while children sleep.” — 145 people liked it

“We have advantages. We have a cushion to fall back on. This is abundance. A luxury of place and time. Something rare and wonderful. It's almost historically unprecedented. We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to.” — 98 people liked it

More quotes…

Groups That Shelved A Heartbreaking W...

Books I Loathed

1554 members

last activity Feb 01, 2012 06:49am

shelf: read

Pick-a-Shelf

731 members

last activity 7 minutes ago

shelf: read

Memoirs and Biographies W...

681 members

last activity Feb 02, 2012 10:12am

shelf: read

title link	preview: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
avg rating	preview: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Goodreads rating: 3.59 (70542 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4953.A_Heartbreaking_Work_of_Staggering_Genius?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327714834m/4953.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4953.A_Heartbreaking_Work_of_Staggering_Genius?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers[/url]

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Readers Also Enjoyed

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website