My dad has this really uneven track record when it comes to presents. You always know he's going to get at least one book, and he writes just achingly beautiful inscriptions in even the ill-considered stuff, the stuff that makes you think, "Dad, seriously, do you have any idea with whom you're dealing?" Then you can't even sell the book surreptitiously, evil ungrateful daughter-like, because it says this true thing even when it doesn't. So this is his most recent birthday gift to my husband, whi More...

I fear that I gave Dave Eggers too much credit for A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. In that book, he describes his life as the newly appointed guardian of his younger brother and their time spent in the Bay area. As it happened, I started that one just days after coming back from San Francisco. I fell in love with the city while I was there and was thrilled to have it intimately described to me while the high was still there.

That, and I’ve got a younger brother who I would be the guar More...

I know a lot of people didn't like this book, their arguments being that it was an unnecessary adaptation/elaboration on Sendak's masterpiece, and a little haphazard and irresolute . . . but I think it works. Actually, I think it's perfect for the tone Eggers is trying to set. The discomfort and awkwardness of his narrative reflects the growing pains of Max, and more than once I found myself tense with the same frustration, anger and despair that he experiences on his journey. I don't know what More...

There's nothing wrong with this book, it's actually quite cute and it's very readable. The problem isn't with Dave Eggers' writing, either, because he's a solid writer and there are moments in the book which are adorable. The problem I had with this adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are is that I'm not sure the source material needed an adaptation at all.

I have been excited to read this book since it was published, and it's been around for a while. The concept is happy-making and the cover art More...

I think, first of all, it's important to note that Maurice Sendak personally asked Dave Eggers to write this adaptation. It isn't some modern novelist's bastardization of the story because he saw the opportunity and took it. He didn't think himself worthy, but Sendak asked him.
As far as the quality of the book itself, it's a good read. It seems half written for children, so at first it seems like it lacks depth. But then, when you start to slip into the mindset of Max, of a child, then you reali More...

I like quite a bit of what Dave Eggers does but I have had a hard time with this story as an adult. Quite clearly, it has affected many of us adults as children and has lent itself space inside the compartments of our brains for many years. I was really excited about the film, especially considering it stars Catherine Keener and there was an Arcade Fire song prominently featured on one of the trailers/previews for it. Lol, I'm a sucker for good music used in films.


Anyhow, what I saw in the film More...

Genre: Fantasy, coming-of-age

Synopsis: Max is wild. Life is changing to quickly for him, his mother seems neglectful, his father is gone, and his sister doesn’t want to play anymore. One night, Max dons his wolf suit and wreaks havoc upon the house, shortly before running away and sailing out to the land where the wild things are. Max relates to these beasts, and soon enough, he is made their king, and he must find some way of controlling them, while also making them happy.

Review: This is a no More...

I would just like to start out this review by saying that I had been wanting to read this book for quite some time and this brought me to build up expectations for it. However, it didn't exactly live up to all of them. Personally, I felt the book was too much of a replica of the movie. Of course similarities are to be expected, but it just left me feeling as of there was nothing to surprise me and that made it a bit boring for me. Even from the first chapter, I felt as if I'd read it before and More...

I enjoyed the deeper look into Max's family life, the relationship nuances there and the presentation of each person's mentalities, despite the stereotypical roles. Arguing with teenaged sister, rebelling from mother's boyfriend, untapped energy and outbursts... Everyone in this book always changed the way they looked at each other, as if anew... And such. I did appreciate an attempt to give the Wild Things more personality, but they were still so abstract and predictable. I liked Katherine and More...

I am not sure what I was expecting when I started this book. I had taken it out with the good faith that it will be a good read because the author came recommended. To have it read like a children's book was mildly surprising, and to find out that my protagonist is a willful little boy is somewhat, well, less pleasing. I must be used to having strong female protagonists in my readings.

In any case, when I have aligned my thoughts to that of young Max, I became more understanding of his actions. L More...

I wanted desperately to dislike this book. Dave Eggers's novel Wild Things could not possibly be anything more than an extended ramble, given that the source material derives its power from its conciseness and psychological acuity. Based on Maurice Sendak's classic children's allegory, Where the Wild Things Are, Eggers's version almost made me think I was wrong: the first third of the book, before Max boards his boat and ventures to the island of the wild things is touching and, though flawed, h More...

While I enjoyed the beginning of this book, and all the nuances of Max’s household and his difficulty adjusting to his parents’ divorce (and all its consequences) – and the very modern/contemporary translation of the setting – I became utterly bored once he arrived at the wild island. Nothing happened. I get that they gnashed their teeth, and destroyed a lot of things, and came close to destroying each other, but I got the impression that’s what they were up to before Max’s arrival, and most lik More...

I've had this sitting on my shelf since it came out. I had seen it in a few stores in Christchurch without much desire to get it until in Wellington I found the fur covered version. I had to have that. Since then I've sat on it until I saw the film (usually the other way round I know but this was based on the screenplay rather then the other way round).

So I saw the film a couple of weeks ago and liked it quite a lot. Now, having been off work sick for the last 4 days or so I picked it up as a co More...

Mallory Gross
Room 307
December 13, 2010


The genre of the Wild Things is fantasy/adventure. Max has problems with his family and runs away to an island full of beasts. The compelling literary element of the book is the characters because they are funny, imaginative and unique.

The first thing I found that was of particular interest was when Katherine ate Max (p. 268) Max was running away from another beast named Carol when he saw Katherine. Katherine’s mouth was wide open, and Max went into it to hi More...

This realistic fiction book is about a boy named max who was at his home but when max’s mom ignores him, max bite’s her a runs away. He sails to an island and the first thing on the island was cheaters. Their looks were interesting. There were 2 birds named duglus and Alexander. There were 4 beast named Katherine, Carol, Ira, Judith, and bull. All of them wanted to eat him but carol because he liked his style. He lied and said that he was king but was not. He decided to make a fort for the beast More...

I was hesitant to pick up Where The Wild Things Are by Dave Eggers because I’m so in love with Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. I was afraid that Eggers was going to ruin the beloved chidren’s book.

It was hard to think that any author – even Eggers – could capture that whimsy that accompanies the original picture book. Maybe Eggers could get the whimsy, but could he also get the message of how powerless youth are, and how liberating their fantasies can be?

In short, yes he could.

Dave More...

Who among us doesn't remember reading "Where the Wild Things Are" as children? Who hasn't roared their terrible roar or gnashed their terrible teeth along with Max? There are so many valuable themes in that book, mainly that as fun as it is to be "wild" it is comforting to be able to come home to people who love you, boundaries and all. Upon hearing that a movie and then a novel was being made from this story, I was excited as there was so much more material to work with than a 37 page picture b More...

Dave Eggers knows just the right things to do to tap into the deepest wishes of our pop-culturally-conditioned hearts, placing emotion within the kinds of neat things we didn't even knew we desired to see developed.

For instance, movie novelizations have always been kind of a joke. They were more popular before home video came into the picture, but still lingered with some popularity for about a decade after. So many of us grew up reading them, and sometimes they'd be neat -- for instance, the " More...

A good effort and overall an interesting exercise in reimagining a classic for a new intended audience (although there is definitely critical debate about that, i.e. was Sendak's picture book even child appropriate and was it more suited toward an adult's look back on childhood). Also, Eggers' story was a little bit more violent than I expected, especially in the final chapters and the "end of the world" scenes. Yet, there were moments of beauty in the description of the imaginary land of the wi More...

Fuck everyone who disliked this book; I don't understand why.

Okay, I don’t even really like David Eggers (I find his writing style too dreamy and abstract) but I picked this book up at the library because its based off of Where the Wild Things Are, which is a book I remember as a kid and a really moving movie. The book is based off the screenplay actually.

I own two book by Eggers, or like my sister does, but I’ve read them like they are my own, which are: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Geni More...

Perhaps my childhood was a little too comfortable - Sendak's original children's book kind of slipped my mind. My childhood friends loved it, for sure, and as I grew up, my adult friends remembered it with the kind of fondness usually reserved for first-time crushes on television stars.

I started out loving this book, but maybe that is because I'm an adult living with a couple of kids. Of course I'm looking for solid explanations for inexplicable behavior and emotional current.

I didn't know where More...

I was really excited about this movie. I thought it was a really interesting interpretation of a childhood favorite. The original Where The Wild Things Are always seemed to me to be a novel of escape. To escape from an unsatisfactory home, Max dreams up this wild place where it's all fun and no rules and all love, warm and furry. The movie takes that idea and expands upon it, and with the movie comes this book. Now, I haven't seen the movie yet, but I do know the book diverges slightly from the More...

i'd actually give this closer to 3.5 stars. like some other reviews i've read, this starts off sooo strong. max is this wonderful, young, spontaneous, imaginative, creative, emotional creature that kind of awakens the child in you when you open up the book.

the reason this is not a 4 or 5 star book is simply that the book felt... rushed... maybe is the right word. there's not much development of the monsters at all in the book -- which i firmly believe to be intentional, as this story IS about m More...

Okay...in fairness...I couldn't make it all the way to the end and it was really more like 2.5 stars.

Where the Wild Things Are was not a staple of my childhood and while we owned it I only read it occasionally to my daughter. I do like the idea in general of different perspectives on familiar works, and I really enjoyed Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, so it was in that spirit that I picked this up. While it started off being just fine to have all this deeper more "grown up" background on what was going More...

Another reviewer perfectly stated my expectations regarding this novel; namely, that it would provide additional information, exploration and amplification of the Wild Thing characters as they exist in the film. Eggers and Jonze are known to have fleshed out the wild things in much greater detail than is shown in the film and I had hoped some of that detail had found its way into the book. The novel does not deliver in this regard but instead introduces multiple changes to the characters and muc More...

Yeah, the movie version of this novel -- with screen play co-written by this author and movie director Spike Jones -- is my favorite movie of 2010. Meanwhile, the book diverges somewhat from the script which diverges still from the original by Sendak (which really needs no introduction.) Are these adaptations better than the original? (Oh come on now, really? Are you really asking that?) But, both the movie and the book add dimension, modernize, fill in back story and generally extend Sendak's o More...

I picked up The Wild Things by Dave Eggers. I’ve heard various things about Eggers as a writer, but never having read anything by him, I think I made the right choice in choosing The wild Things to lost my Eggers-virginity to. I finished it and wrote a blase review, but I thought I should do the book some justice and actually properly write down, in a coherent fashion, my thoughts concerning the book. I don’t know who the target audience really was, except the backstory to Egger’s book was that More...

I think I'd put this somewhere between three and four stars, actually. I really enjoyed this "novelization" of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" but in the end was left wanting more -- more explanation, more resolution, more something. Still, Eggers does a great job of showing why Max is such "wild thing" -- not that I've ever been a little boy, but this sure seems to capture the confusion, imagination, and immaturity that can fuel a boy's adventures (and troublemaking). The first par More...