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CRUDDY: An Illustrated Novel
by Lynda Barry

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29015.CRUDDY_An_Illustrated_Novel?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="CRUDDY: An Illustrated Novel" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167958868m/29015.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29015.CRUDDY_An_Illustrated_Novel?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">CRUDDY: An Illustrated Novel</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/11646.Lynda_Barry">Lynda Barry</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7797832?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 5 of 5 stars I loved this book!! I've been meaning to read Barry for awhile and came across a copy of Cruddy and went for it. I don't know where to place this book. It's the story of a girl named Roberta who may very well of had the most miserable existence anyone could conjur up, and it unveils itself in a stream of off the wall disaster and heartbreaking realizations. Two narrative rn parallel to each other as Roberta accounts both from her "restricted life;" she's grounded. One narrative is the story of how she got grounded, due to ditching school and partaking in a 24 hour LSD trip that takes her all through her "cruddy" hometown and ends in a fatal disaster. The other takes the form of a viciously horrific tale of five years prior when Roberta, then 11, is kidnapped by her father and brought along on a homocidal road trip in search of a denied fortune and easily the most distubing and terrifying father daughter bonding vacation anyone could conjur up. 
 
 The LSD tale strangely follows a Wizard of Oz like structure as she journeys in a psychedelic confusion with her colorful cast of teenage acquaintances: the Turtle, the Stick, the Great Wesley, the Monkey, and Vickie Tallusoj ("The Violent One"), the j is silent. The father story is so much like the Hobbit or Treasure Island but is also one of the most traumatizing and terribly brutal stories I've read (I think ever). You will cringe, you will hate everyone Roberta comes in contact with, save maybe one person, this story will make you despise humanity as this brutal and gruesome account of the murderous grifter father and his enlisting of his 11 year year old daughter as an accomplice unfolds. It is an ungodly tale, but completely impossibe to put down.
 
 Read this book, and though its near certan that the book will ruin your day, its brilliant storytelling, awesome illustrations, and poignant realizations make it more than worth the heartache it will induce. Lynda Barry might be a genius.
 
 "Twinkle twinkle little star. You are nothing. You've been dead for a thousand years..." 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/139747?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

James's review
rating:

bookshelves: contemporary-fiction
recommended for: Anyone with a strong stomach
status: Read in October, 2007

I loved this book!! I've been meaning to read Barry for awhile and came across a copy of Cruddy and went for it. I don't know where to place this book. It's the story of a girl named Roberta who may very well of had the most miserable existence anyone could conjur up, and it unveils itself in a stream of off the wall disaster and heartbreaking realizations. Two narrative rn parallel to each other as Roberta accounts both from her "restricted life;" she's grounded. One narrative is the story of how she got grounded, due to ditching school and partaking in a 24 hour LSD trip that takes her all through her "cruddy" hometown and ends in a fatal disaster. The other takes the form of a viciously horrific tale of five years prior when Roberta, then 11, is kidnapped by her father and brought along on a homocidal road trip in search of a denied fortune and easily the most distubing and terrifying father daughter bonding vacation anyone could conjur up.

The LSD t...more I loved this book!! I've been meaning to read Barry for awhile and came across a copy of Cruddy and went for it. I don't know where to place this book. It's the story of a girl named Roberta who may very well of had the most miserable existence anyone could conjur up, and it unveils itself in a stream of off the wall disaster and heartbreaking realizations. Two narrative rn parallel to each other as Roberta accounts both from her "restricted life;" she's grounded. One narrative is the story of how she got grounded, due to ditching school and partaking in a 24 hour LSD trip that takes her all through her "cruddy" hometown and ends in a fatal disaster. The other takes the form of a viciously horrific tale of five years prior when Roberta, then 11, is kidnapped by her father and brought along on a homocidal road trip in search of a denied fortune and easily the most distubing and terrifying father daughter bonding vacation anyone could conjur up.

The LSD tale strangely follows a Wizard of Oz like structure as she journeys in a psychedelic confusion with her colorful cast of teenage acquaintances: the Turtle, the Stick, the Great Wesley, the Monkey, and Vickie Tallusoj ("The Violent One"), the j is silent. The father story is so much like the Hobbit or Treasure Island but is also one of the most traumatizing and terribly brutal stories I've read (I think ever). You will cringe, you will hate everyone Roberta comes in contact with, save maybe one person, this story will make you despise humanity as this brutal and gruesome account of the murderous grifter father and his enlisting of his 11 year year old daughter as an accomplice unfolds. It is an ungodly tale, but completely impossibe to put down.

Read this book, and though its near certan that the book will ruin your day, its brilliant storytelling, awesome illustrations, and poignant realizations make it more than worth the heartache it will induce. Lynda Barry might be a genius.

"Twinkle twinkle little star. You are nothing. You've been dead for a thousand years..." ...less

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