The inmate with a mop held back the inmate without a mop.
Set mostly in Manhattan—although also featuring Atlantic City, Brookl... read full description
Set mostly in Manhattan—although also featuring Atlantic City, Brookl... read full description
reviews
Sep 29, 2011
Lee
rated it: 
In recognition of Tao Lin's mention of this review on HTMLgiant, I've decided to temporarily give his novella an additional 'star,' although I won't change the original review 'below':
My facial expression was almost neutral after I finished this book, which was controlled, calm, short, flat, and simple. I'm not the target demographic for this book. I don't really get excited about nearly identical disembodied proper nouns doing not much and talking about not much in an intentionally More...
My facial expression was almost neutral after I finished this book, which was controlled, calm, short, flat, and simple. I'm not the target demographic for this book. I don't really get excited about nearly identical disembodied proper nouns doing not much and talking about not much in an intentionally More...
4 comments
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(18 people liked it)
Sep 19, 2011
Matthieu
rated it: 
Assembled everything, bled thru.
8 comments
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(13 people liked it)
Feb 06, 2012
Jason
rated it:
Well, a friend and I discussed this book for a moment. She had recently read it, and I just finished it yesterday. We concluded that we didn't like it very much. It wasn't terrible, there were some good parts, funny parts - the seemingly incompetent writing was most likely intentional and consistent with the scattered-brained vapid technologically saturated creatures who aimlessly and meaninglessly search for a reason to exist and ways to stave off boredom in a landscape of too many possibilitie
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0 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Jul 12, 2010
Jasmine
rated it: 
I have a feeling that this review will be insulting, so perhaps people emotionally attached to either this book or eat when you feel sad should perhaps just look at the star rating not the rest of the review. Thanks.
I like this book, I like a lot of books, sadly me liking thing tends to translate into me having opinions which easily slides into direct criticism. Things I hate are safer I tend to simply digress or not care enough to say anything.
Anyhow, let's begin with a More...
I like this book, I like a lot of books, sadly me liking thing tends to translate into me having opinions which easily slides into direct criticism. Things I hate are safer I tend to simply digress or not care enough to say anything.
Anyhow, let's begin with a More...
0 comments
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(5 people liked it)
Dec 02, 2011
Very
rated it:
I’m not the kind of person who likes to read “challenging” novels, who dissects convoluted paragraphs to find the “genius” lurking beneath the surface. So it was refreshing to read a story that wasn’t cluttered with pretentious descriptions of bowties and caterpillars. I loved the nihilism and existential drama because it was all wrapped up in pop culture references and demented gmail chats, like when Sam and Luis talk about how much they love Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwiches, but that actually
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4 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Jan 02, 2012
Leah
rated it:
I think it must be ridiculously hard to write this simply and make it endurable. I actually didn't quite connect with the ending as much as the rest of the book; once he met Audrey it sort of veered off in a different direction than the one it had seemed to be heading in.
I think this might be because I read an alternate ending that he posted a link to on his blog or something, so the character of Audrey and the role she played were foreshadowed and so felt a little less genuine.
I More...
I think this might be because I read an alternate ending that he posted a link to on his blog or something, so the character of Audrey and the role she played were foreshadowed and so felt a little less genuine.
I More...
Feb 11, 2012
Dan
rated it:
as i see it, there are a few slightly contradictory ways to interpret this book...
one way would be to see it as some kind of updated, facebook-era existential absurd-ism - like kafka or beckett with text-messaging. or you can the opposite approach, and see it as a twee, miranda july-ish attempt to capture the awkwardness and vulnerability of 20-something vernacular. or you could pull pack a bit, and look at it as a mostly formal exercise in the rhythms of conversational language, with More...
one way would be to see it as some kind of updated, facebook-era existential absurd-ism - like kafka or beckett with text-messaging. or you can the opposite approach, and see it as a twee, miranda july-ish attempt to capture the awkwardness and vulnerability of 20-something vernacular. or you could pull pack a bit, and look at it as a mostly formal exercise in the rhythms of conversational language, with More...
Dec 31, 2011
Tfitoby
rated it:
This was in the cult section of my favourite bookshop and upon reading the title I knew I had to get this book. Yes, I guess this makes me hip or some other label.
I now know more about the author because I loved this novella so much I had to wiki him. He made a documentary on the mumblecore film movement and this is a fact that sheds a whole new light on the structure of Shoplifting From American Apparel. This is a mumblecore novella.
There is something so real and awkward and More...
I now know more about the author because I loved this novella so much I had to wiki him. He made a documentary on the mumblecore film movement and this is a fact that sheds a whole new light on the structure of Shoplifting From American Apparel. This is a mumblecore novella.
There is something so real and awkward and More...
Dec 26, 2011
Jay
rated it:
Shoplifting From American Apparel is a novella stripped of anything that resembles description. Characters are only distinguised by their names or, for unnamed characters, by their ethnicity; faces are described by reference to a "facial expression" (most often "neutral"); dialogue is flat, literally monotonous--questions are more likely than not to appear without question marks--and treats only of irrelevant, incidental subjects; time and it's passing is mentioned but for no
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Oct 19, 2011
Rachel Ann
rated it: 
I appreciate Lin's project and his aim in writing this book, but once it was over, it was over, leaving me unaffected, without many memorable scenes or moments to think about beyond the context of the text itself. I do admire Lin's referencing of pop culture and his clever capturing of characters who seemingly align themselves with indie subculture (but not really) without it feeling too clumsy or heavy-handed. However, my favorite moments were ultimately slapstick:
"'I don't hol More...
"'I don't hol More...
May 09, 2011
Anita
rated it: 
Look, people have shit on those who write for a new zeitgeist pretty much since publishing evolved from the Gutenberg Press to a more accessible means of conveying ideas. Truman Capote demeaned Kerouac. Half the people I know would like to kill Holden Caulfield if he were a real human. Douglas Coupland mined his generation so thoroughly that some think he wrote himself into a place of relative irrelevance, and Bret Easton Ellis’s scathing examination of 1980s consumer culture, American Psycho,
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3 comments
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(13 people liked it)
Apr 09, 2011
Spoonbridge
rated it:
I'm not entirely sure how to review this interesting, unusual work of seemingly semi-autobiographical fiction. The work follows the mundane everyday life of Sam, an unfocused vegan writer who bums about New York City (and occasionally elsewhere) shoplifting, drinking Synergy brand kombucha, chatting with friends on Gmail, and indulging in painfully self-conscious irony (he jokes about buying a "Spicy Chicken Sandwich from Wendy's, and then not eating it). I have to say, "Shoplifting fr
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0 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Apr 04, 2011
I find this book very attractive. Seriously. I have a weird book crush on these Melville House editions of novellas (they have both a classics series and a contemporary series).
Other than that, I'm not entirely sure what to say about Shoplifting From American Apparel, so I will attempt to tell you what it is about. Sam is a writer. He lives in Brooklyn. He has a friend. His name is Luis. They like to talk about nothing on gmail chat. Sam steals things that he doesn't need. He More...
Other than that, I'm not entirely sure what to say about Shoplifting From American Apparel, so I will attempt to tell you what it is about. Sam is a writer. He lives in Brooklyn. He has a friend. His name is Luis. They like to talk about nothing on gmail chat. Sam steals things that he doesn't need. He More...
Nov 21, 2010
A. D.
rated it:
A minor modern masterpiece, easily the best thing I've read by Lin, and one of the best new novels I've read by anyone. Do folks still think after this one that Lin isn't deeply committed either to his own writing or to literature? Rather, he strikes me as far more serious than most. An updating of 80s minimalist realism to the present-day, this book is as desperately absurd and emotional as works by Beattie, Carver, L. Moore, J. Williams (the lineage Lin is clearly inhabiting). I read this seve
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0 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Aug 15, 2010
James
rated it:
As previous reviews have aptly explained, this book does kind of resist any sort of formal analysis. I am going to try to outline my main problem with this book, but it should be noted that I actually don't dislike this book, it's just hard to "like" or have any kind of emotional response to, in the conventional sense.
So the main problem I have with this book is that, having read quite a lot of what has been written about the book, I am left feeling that the people who write More...
So the main problem I have with this book is that, having read quite a lot of what has been written about the book, I am left feeling that the people who write More...
0 comments
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(3 people liked it)
May 12, 2010
Adam
rated it:
I sat and read this book at once, in about 2 hours or so total. It demands to be read in one sitting, the way that it is organized, with no chapters and a continuous flowing narrative.
There were several places that I felt like there was a real connection between the main character and myself. I have felt the way that he is feeling. I have taken note of the things that he takes note of. Disaffected, yet deeply affected at the same time. Severely, chronically depressed and worn down f More...
There were several places that I felt like there was a real connection between the main character and myself. I have felt the way that he is feeling. I have taken note of the things that he takes note of. Disaffected, yet deeply affected at the same time. Severely, chronically depressed and worn down f More...
0 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Apr 15, 2010
Poncho
rated it:
there is really no way to be quite sure what you make of it
it is so simple that it resists analysis
it is so transparent that it hurts
but it's confusing because the words elicit things that are not words and when you want to explain why the words do what the words do (with words) then none of the explanatory words are satisfactory
in fact i could say "it is a book where the main character gets arrested for shoplifting twice but it never seems li More...
it is so simple that it resists analysis
it is so transparent that it hurts
but it's confusing because the words elicit things that are not words and when you want to explain why the words do what the words do (with words) then none of the explanatory words are satisfactory
in fact i could say "it is a book where the main character gets arrested for shoplifting twice but it never seems li More...
Apr 09, 2010
christa
rated it:
Of all the vapid crap in all the vapid world over, this is the vapid-est. I have not been able to get that word out of my head -- vapid! vapid! vapid! -- since I finished Tao Lin's vapid "it" novella "Shoplifting from American Apparel." A task completed over the course of an hour and a half that would have been better spent watching "16 and Pregnant."
True story: I read more than half of this in the cafe at Barnes & Noble and knew I hated it. But I still More...
True story: I read more than half of this in the cafe at Barnes & Noble and knew I hated it. But I still More...
8 comments
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(7 people liked it)
Mar 21, 2010
Phloe
rated it:
Two stars because Lin does - write in a way no one else has prior.
Two stars because - it really wasn't all that engaging.
But. I'm not the one with a book deal, and one who is included in the series "The Art of The Novella" alongside Kipling, Flaubert, Wharton and Joyce. Tao Lin is inarguably making more money than I am.
Shrug. Maybe it's because I'm not a writer. I just read. Perhaps I am missing something.
One-hundred-and-three pages of h More...
Two stars because - it really wasn't all that engaging.
But. I'm not the one with a book deal, and one who is included in the series "The Art of The Novella" alongside Kipling, Flaubert, Wharton and Joyce. Tao Lin is inarguably making more money than I am.
Shrug. Maybe it's because I'm not a writer. I just read. Perhaps I am missing something.
One-hundred-and-three pages of h More...
0 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Jan 10, 2010
Andy
rated it:
I'm a fan of gritty realism, and i've got no problem when a book doesn't go anywhere. It's not that I don't "get it", it's that the author doesn't. If taken as satire, the references are painfully out of touch and come across like the misplaced name-dropping of someone who hangs out in the city on weekends but doesn't really know his way around.
If the book is actually to be taken in earnest, it reflects the privileged, vapid reality inhabited by the class of "slumming More...
If the book is actually to be taken in earnest, it reflects the privileged, vapid reality inhabited by the class of "slumming More...
0 comments
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(6 people liked it)
Dec 30, 2009
Trish
rated it:
Just this morning NPR broadcaster Lynn Neary opined that ebooks and online mobile reading will make writers and readers of traditional books less central to the important intellectual challenges being debated today. Since most ebooks are simply a repackaging of "traditional" books, I question that assertion, but it did make me take another look at Tao Lin's Shoplifting from American Apparel. It occured to me that the style, which hasn't a strong narrative thread but is bits More...
0 comments
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(3 people liked it)
Dec 18, 2009
Schuyler
rated it:
It's easy to read Lin and conclude that he writes about nothing. I mean, that's what I was thinking half the time. But what is behind the 'nothing'. And what do I mean by 'nothing', because clearly he's writing about something. 'Nothing' is really a representation of the current twenty something generation (of which I am a part) that spends way too much time on their Macbooks (this is a Macbook on which I am typing)and talking on Gchat (of which I am also guilty...guilty? Why do I say guilt
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0 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Oct 18, 2009
Buttercup
rated it:
this book made me shit myself in a way that felt 'productive'. i felt that i was shitting myself with a purpose. it took me approximately twelve hours to read. over the course of those twelve hours i shat myself seventeen times. it felt good. my prostate was adequately stimulated each time i shat myself. i read this book again briefly over the course of the last three minutes. i didn't shit myself this time. i felt 'a little perturbed' while reading the parts of the book where sam acts 'impossib
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Sep 22, 2009
Read the STOP SMILING Interview with Tao Lin:
Reading About Other People's Lives
Stop Smiling: You’ve said that your target demographic includes hipsters, happy but sensitive teenagers, depressed vegans, Europeans and college students. Does it strike you as odd when other types of people — say, literary critics or editors of magazines — are attracted to your writing?
Tao Lin: No. The way I write, I feel, is within the tradition of what literary critics in eve More...
Sep 20, 2009
Karen
rated it:
I wandered over to my local Barnes and Noble and read Tao Lin's new book. I feel very mixed feelings...I kinda enjoy his hipster writing, but at the same time, he really annoys me with his emo attitude and cliches. And while a lot of people are so impressed by the New York references to clubs and stuff, I was just like "oh....yeah", having lived there myself and being immune to name dropping. The trendiness was overkill-Odwalla, East Village bars, Myspace, organic veganism, Gmail chat
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0 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Sep 17, 2009
Imogen
rated it:
Ah, Tao Lin. Evan was like, "Tao Lin has an Andy Warhol thing going on," which is true. Intentionally vapid in a way that points to the vapidness (vapidity!) of the culture! Smart.
And for the first sixty pages of this little book, I was super pumped about it. "This is great," I thought. "Nobody writes this simply and directly about complicated things." But by the end I was like, "okay, yes, you write simply and directly about complicated things, an More...
And for the first sixty pages of this little book, I was super pumped about it. "This is great," I thought. "Nobody writes this simply and directly about complicated things." But by the end I was like, "okay, yes, you write simply and directly about complicated things, an More...
5 comments
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(2 people liked it)
May 06, 2011
Vivek
rated it:
This novella is a slice of early 21st century life among middle class creative types in urban US. The characters live detached lives in which nothing much happens but everything is observed and worthy of comment. The main character is unable to judge his own reaction to things or his own emotional state. He tries to make connections with people, often making heroic attempts, but is largely frustrated by a mixture of the cultural environment and his own character.
It has a certain rin More...
It has a certain rin More...
Feb 22, 2010
Sophie
rated it:
I like how he didn't use any question marks.
Do you wake up most days and your first thoughts are of literature, you go to sleep thinking about literature.
Steal from some shitty corporation. We have fair-trade labor. I mean fair labor.
You don't want to fuck with a man who is smarter than Einstein.
You motherpuggers, motherfuckers. I am so angry right now.
'I know,' said the bald Caucasian. 'I am geographically sound.'
More...
Do you wake up most days and your first thoughts are of literature, you go to sleep thinking about literature.
Steal from some shitty corporation. We have fair-trade labor. I mean fair labor.
You don't want to fuck with a man who is smarter than Einstein.
You motherpuggers, motherfuckers. I am so angry right now.
'I know,' said the bald Caucasian. 'I am geographically sound.'
More...
Nov 12, 2010
Mary Liz
rated it:
A quick read. It's almost painfully true to life in some parts. With very little description of who the main character in the book is, the reader can make him out to be whoever they see fit. I could see this made into an indie film... The kind about nothing, but, for whatever reason, I still like it. No real emotions are ever depicted from the main character, allowing the reader to infer a lot or just read it as a time line of events rather than a time line of eventful times in a person's li
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Sep 09, 2010
I don't feel that I can actually rate this book properly, hence why I am just writing a review. Shoplifting from American Apparel is a book I can only describe as Metro. It's a book that will either be loved or hated by one reader and unfortunately for me and Lin, I feel that although I ironically place myself in-between love and hate for this book, I lean towards dislike. The new media of novella is an interesting idea and one that I feel is long overdue. In this book Lin can address through me
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