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Jan 07, 2008

Jen rated it:

Recommended for: English majors who like to play deconstruction, hipsters who used to make mix tapes,anyone who knows of Lloyd Dobbler, guys who are really into music and didn't get laid until college, the girls who love them

Forgive me for what I'm about to do. I'm really not a complete curmudgeon, and I feel nefarious for the review I'm about to give, mostly because everyone I know likes this book, but I simply can't promote all of these essays as refreshingly creative and br More...

8 comments like (36 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2011

Dan rated it:

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto is a collection of essays by Chuck Klosterman. It's also one of the rare books I'm not really sure how to review or even rate.

Chuck's essays cover such diverse topics as how the movies and TV are giving people unrealistic expectations about life and love, serial killers, the relationship between Reality Bites and The Empire Strikes Back, and that weird half season of Saved by the Bell that had that leather jacket wearing girl inst More...

9 comments like (22 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

lauren rated it:

No woman will ever satisfy me. I know that now, and I would never try to deny it. But this is actually okay, because I will never satisfy a woman, either.

Should I be writing such thoughts? Perhaps not. Perhaps it's a bad idea. I can definitely foresee a scenario where that first paragraph could come back to haunt me, especially if I somehow became marginally famous. If I become marginally famous, I will undoubtedly be interviewed by someone in the media, and the interviewer will ine More...

0 comments like (17 people liked it)

Jul 13, 2007

Antisocialite rated it:

If I met Chuck Klosterman, I would probably end up attempting to pick a fistfight with him. I say "attempting" because I don't know whether he hits girls. And I say "probably" because, for all I know, he may be far less infuriating in person than he is in print.

A lot of space in this book is aimed at mocking the pretensions of people who, I admit, sound an awful lot like me: decently-educated, irony-clad, pop-culture obsessed twentysomethings who deride popular co More...

2 comments like (14 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2008

Matt rated it:

this is exactly the kind of book so-called hipsters cling to, namedrop, and reference when they gather together dressed in their bright eyes t-shirts, black-rimmed glasses, jeans, and chuck taylors. you know the type, the 'i'm-cooler-than-you-are-because-my-tastes-are-better-than-yours.' you know who i'm talking about? good. continue.

what initially drove me to read this book was his opening 'essay' in which chuck klosterman refers to coldplay as a facsimile of travis who was a facsi More...

10 comments like (19 people liked it)

Mar 18, 2008

Daniel rated it:

When I was in college, one of my professors assigned a book that used bridge, a card game he apparently loved, to illustrate the principles of sociology. I found the book, which he had written, to be a waste of time and was annoyed that he made us buy and read it. At the end of the semester, we had to write a paper that applied sociological theories to something in American culture we were interested in. So, in an attempt to mock the professor, I focused my paper on several children's cartoons i More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Jul 29, 2008

Alana rated it:

It's not that I didn't like this book... Okay, that's exactly what it is. But the real issue I had with Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is this: I've either had every conversation in this book (which I enjoyed more than these essay versions of them) or I've walked away from the conversation because it didn't interest me in the slightest. I can name at least ten people I know who could have written this book (give or take an article or two), and probably could have written it better (including the More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 08, 2008

Kristen rated it:

Klosterman was recommended to me by a friend, and while I'll admit he has some funny bits, he really is that guy at the party who is exceedingly nerdy (in a hipster sort of way) and who thinks he's clearly better than everyone else. And no one -- no one -- should devote the amount of time and attention to pop culture that he does. And this is coming from a girl who gets a regular dose of Perez Hilton every week. I'm his target audience, and yet he still turned me off. He critiques pop culture at More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2008

Tess rated it:

This book was a total waste of time. As a huge fan of philosophy, my breaking point was only by page 20. I thought, this whole book can't be THAT bad...so I flipped around and read snippets from later chapters to make sure I wasn't selling it short. But alas, no, this was truly a masterpiece of crap. Its just some hipster-type asshole, who thinks he's got it all figured out, and says things like, "If you define your personality as 'creative,' it only means you understand what is PERCEIV More...

2 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2007

Diana rated it:

Anything that calls itself a "low culture manifesto" is really one of two things; 1) an emotional teenager trying to write his/her first novel 2) a middle age man trying to remember the carefree days of his youth.

The chapters are organized like a "cd mix tape" complete with arbitrary lengths of time. They even included a picture of a cd and jewel case to ingrain it in your brain.

I read chapter one, "This is Emo 0:01" and that was too much al

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Apr 06, 2008

Jessica rated it:

as i just said in an email to james:

i knocked out sex drugs and cocoa puffs by chuck klosterman in a few hours last night, and i gotta tell you, i fear for the world when i think of how many kids i know list this book or its author as an all-time favorite on facebook. this guy is a turd, and people are clearly confusing his wit with intellect.

so yeah.
frustratingly surface, misogynistic, hipster cynicism b.s. if you ask me.

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Aug 20, 2007

Brynn rated it:

"There are two ways to look at life. The first view is that nothing stays the same and that nothing is inherently connected, and that the only driving force in anyone's life is entropy. The second is that everything pretty much stays the same (more or less) and that everything is completely connected, even if we don't realize it."

"In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself'".

"There's not a lo More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Barrett rated it:

a nice little collection of essays covering everything from the Sims, why the Lakers / Celtics conflict can apply to everything in life, the Real World, and Saved by the Bell. Chuck has a pretty sharp little wit; i definitely snickered through most of the book (which made for some awkward looks on the metro). i think my only critique would be the novelty of his writing style started to wear off by the end of the book, but overall, a good read.

definitely a fan of the section on why J More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2009

Trin rated it:

Another reread, mostly because a story about Klosterman being friends with three people who were acquainted with serial killers that I thought was in Killing Yourself to Live was in fact not in that book, but this one. (I wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy and imagining the whole thing. I'm not, though Robert Graysmith's little obsession seems to be somewhat contagious, dammit.)

ANYWAY (and there I go again)...I've already said a lot about Klosterman in various reviews of his books, and More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 08, 2008

Liz rated it:

many many people told me i would love this book and they were very wrong. chuck klosterman is a glorified blogger, not a writer. and certainly not "the voice of a generation" as corporate magazines gq and spin would have me believe.

don't believe the hype.

chuck, the girl didn't dump you cause you weren't john cusack. the girl dumped you because you are a douchebag.

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

Sep 01, 2008

Alegria rated it:

I know I'm supposed to be won over by Chuck Klosterman's supposedly keen and cutting insight into pop culture and therefore the modern human experience, but I really just felt like I was at a really dull party and cornered by some annoyingly pseudo-intellectual guy whose sole enjoyment is to contradict and mock anything anyone says just to hear himself talk.

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 01, 2009

Marisa rated it:

Any book that begins with an amusing foray into the ways in which Lloyd Dobler has effectively destroyed the author's chance for real love (and perhaps the fake kind too) is a book that I immediately want to like. However, Klosterman essentially reels you in with his lighthearted, self-effacing opener only to assault you with a series of overgeneralized, matter-of-fact (yet largely unsupported) assertions about human behavior in the essays that follow.

While several of his essays offe More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 18, 2009

Archie rated it:

This is the first Chuck Klosterman book I have ever read. I saw Seth Cohen reading it on "The O.C." and decided to check it out. I was not disappointed.

It a series of ridiculous, highly pretentious, yet, very well-written essays on pop-culture. There really is no other way to describe it. If you want to laugh about inconsequential subject matter, such as "Saved by the Bell," then please read this book.

Here is a complete list of chapters (essays) that More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 08, 2008

dara rated it:

Skimming the reviews, I must say I agree with someone's comment that Klosterman is more of a blogger than a writer (at least if judged by this effort), but for a collection of essays on pop culture, that doesn't seem to be a very crucial distinction. With Internet culture overflowing into the day-to-day life of most Americans, it shouldn't come as a shock to find it reflected in contemporary writing; besides, sometimes a decent blogger is preferable to a boring writer. That isn't to say that I w More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 02, 2008

Marcus rated it:

This book started out great...nice and insightful...As it progressed, however, I've found myself removing stars from the rating.

He tries too hard to tie everything up in a neat little bow...every essay has to end with a witty little wrap-up sentence, dripping with a false poignancy, essentially wrapping it up with his original statement. It started feeling as formulaic as pop music.

It was when I got to Toby vs Moby that I found myself closing the book, and throwing it a More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 16, 2011

Rob rated it:

If you must, you may call it jealousy, but there is no getting around the fact that if someone had read my essays during college, and then paid me to keep writing those essays, then I could (would) have been Chuck Klosterman. [1] But seriously: I feel like I could have written all of these essays (possibly better) if only someone had come along and said: Hey, you've got the right kind of sarcastic wit and you know how to stitch together a bunch of quasi-esoteric references... can you bang togeth More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

May 27, 2011

Justine rated it:

So Klosterman is cited as a favorite writer by several people who I respect a lot and Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs was a delightful read in kind of a trashy way. It's billed as a "low culture manifesto"-- so I guess that's okay.

The book is structured as a series of unconnected essays all about pop culture things. His voice is similar to that of David Foster Wallace, but in general, h is less intellectual, (I would argue less insightful), and a little darker. While Wallace More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 09, 2007

Michelle rated it:

Chuck Klosterman reminds me of a friend I had throughout high school and into college and still encounter during the occassional "reunion-type" gathering. We don't often talk about religion, politics, or even really what we've been doing with our lives since we last saw one another... save for the recent movies we've seen, what's being played on the radio, or the latest Geico commercial.

Like with that friend, I don't always "get" every reference that Chuck makes. More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 04, 2007

Jason.frisbie rated it:

First off, I love pop culture in the same way that junkies love heroin: It's a dependent, enlightening and depressing relationship. To that same intensity where some people can't help but rubber neck to a highway car crash and have it as the only thing they talk about all day, my life and (sadly) my conversations are interwoven with references to television shows, movies or even pop lyrics used as dialogue in some sad attempts to be funny.

I was lent this book by a friend who shares More...

0 comments like

Jul 31, 2007

Russell rated it:

The book feels choppy, the chapters are written like one might write for Spin Magazine. It does not seem like a writer for Spin would want his book to read like his magazine, but I guess when you're stuck in a rut. I liked some of the development of his ideas. Klosterman uses the F-word on about every 3rd page, and when he does he uses it like a 7th grader with Tourette's syndrome. His analysis hinges on B-sides of musical artists and like most rock critics he chooses to annotate his work, n More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 29, 2007

Brenna rated it:

About 50% done with the book. I recall from reading this in 2005 that I quite enjoyed it, but not because I agreed with Klosterman whatsoever.

An excerpt from my blog (4/30/2005) while reading it:

So I'm in the middle of reading Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (which I've greatly enjoyed so far) but got a bit irked when reading a particular chapter on the bus on the way to work today.

In this chapter, Klosterman presents the thesis that Pamela Anderson is the Marily More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 19, 2007

Laura rated it:

The thing about Chuck Klosterman is that he's wrong about almost everything. Of course, in this book, he cops to this immediately -- literally within the first ten pages -- as though he's disclaiming everything he's about to say. Then he extrapolates his wrongness out to the universe at large, declaring that everyone is, in fact, wrong about everything.

That's the general gist of this book. In this uneven -- and occasionally very funny -- collection of pop culture essays, Chuck share More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 29, 2007

m rated it:

[http://www.belle-aurore.com/mike/weblog.php?id=P268]
I'm once again up against limited writing time, so in reviewing the oddly titled Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman, I'm forced to go for a serialization. Klosterman would want it that way -- he jumps from subject to subject in each chapter in a way that either defies logic or convinces you that Larry Bird created the world in seven days, not a minute more.

It's a hilarious book but an old one, published not only More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Abby rated it:

I picked up Chuck Klosterman long after a former classmate raved about him. "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" was a really entertaining read, something that I curled into bed with on a regular basis. Klosterman is great when you want to laugh at American society, but you have to take him with a grain of salt as he criticizes everything from "Fake Love Music" (ie, Coldplay, which I have to agree with him about) to the Real World (which he is surprisingly obsessed with) to how ever More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 07, 2008

Alex rated it:

Klosterman is a terrible writer. This book reads like a collection of New Yorker articles written by someone who is mildly developmentally disabled. The boring and insightless writing contained within was off-putting enough that I don't even want to read Klosterman's "heavy metal" book, either. Do not waste your time on this book.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)