Jen read and liked Christy's review of The Road:

"Oh my god.

A few question for our friend Cormac McCarthy:

Why don’t you use quotation marks ever, or apostrophes all the time? Do you really think that clever little device is going to make or break our experience of the desol...more Oh my god.

A few question for our friend Cormac McCarthy:

Why don’t you use quotation marks ever, or apostrophes all the time? Do you really think that clever little device is going to make or break our experience of the desolate, spare, bleak world you have created for us? You don’t think you’ve pounded it into our heads enough in other ways? I just don't go for cheap gimmicks like that.

Why do so many of your sentence fragments lack verbs? And when they do contain verbs, don’t you think a disproportionate number of them are really just nouns that you’ve inappropriately turned into verbs? Is this supposed to add to the feeling of stagnant claustrophobia you’re shoving down my throat? Would you ever use a phrase like stagnant claustrophobia, or would you say something like “A mute void, black and still. The dust. Hands heavy like ham hocks.”

Why do you continually use adjectives so poorly? And by the way (to quote what appears to be a favorite passage):
“He rose and stood tottering in that cold autistic dark with his arms outheld for balance while the vestibular calculations in his skull cranked out their reckonings.”

Really? Vestibular calculations? Don’t you think that’s a tad ‘wordy’ for your style? Why can’t you say ‘outstretched’ instead of ‘outheld?’ ‘Autistic dark?’ ‘Cranked out their reckonings?’ You’re creating all sorts of weirdo competing imagery here. I mean, I get that you’re all about creating emotions and sensations about the environment and the characters’ experience. I’m mostly wondering why you don’t just write poetry. That seems like the perfect medium for you. You clearly can’t be bothered with stringing a sentence together correctly, using punctuation, or developing your ideas in a sequential manner. Why don’t you think these conventions should apply to you? This seems pretentious to me.

As a side note, I conducted a short experiment. I flipped to pages, at random, and seven times in a row the first paragraph I looked at contained information about someone sleeping, going to sleep, or just waking up. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Also, am I the only one who noticed that the boy, who by all means has known nothing other than this abandoned, ash-covered, post-apocalyptic world, immediately started making truck noises when they came across an abandoned truck? Now, it is possible that he has witnessed a few trucks riding by, but every time they encounter strangers they fear for their lives and hide. This kind of reaction to people and cars doesn’t exactly foster the habit of making playful sound effects. Is this a recent development? Was there once a time when people, after the “event,” were driving around in trucks, honking their horns and revving the engines for the boy to witness and admire? Maybe next he can find a machine gun on the ground and start playing Rambo. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t had access to television or movies. This just didn’t fit in with the story McCarthy was writing. As another reviewer pointed out, this kid is written like a child who was ripped from a normal suburban childhood and suddenly placed in this desolate world, not one who had never known anything else. That is just sloppy.

P.S. I’m mostly just mad that this guy receives so much praise, and from what I can tell, he isn’t putting much effort into his writing. Come on, the Pulitzer? Josh and I were both reading at the same time, and it was embarrassing (for McCarthy) because I would read a passage from The Road and Josh would read one from The Three Musketeers and it was just so obvious that we aren’t holding authors to the same standards we used to.

UPDATE: I have finished the book. I started to think it was getting better, but then I realized I was just desperately clinging to anything remotely resembling action. No, finding a bunch of canned goods for the third or fourth time isn't exciting plot development. Running into some other people (Oh no! Look! The "bad guys!" Hey, there's a "good guy!") a few times and seeing that they are either starving as well or trying to eat some naked people is mildly interesting, but you can't carry an entire book on it. Yes, I understand that the characters have to suffer through the same old shit every day. But they're characters. Why did he invent them? Why should I be reading about them? What message is he trying to send that hasn't been sent before? This was one of the most simplistic, childish, self-aggrandizing, condescending, boring books I have ever read. I think even the copy editors become bored with it, or at least stopped trying because every time they would make a correction Cormac McCarthy would slap them and say, "You ridiculous plebeian fool! I meant to leave that apostrophe out/choose a random word/repeat the same paragraph as before." That is the only explanation I have for the following sentence on page 35: "They ate the little mushrooms together with the beans and drank tea and had tinned pears for their desert (sic)."(less) "

Jen read and liked Nick's review of The Road:

"I wrestled with a final rating for this. "The Road" definitely has merit. The style is purposefully minimalist. As others have noted there are very few apostrophe's, no commas, no quotation marks. The font is dull. The paragraphs carry extr...more I wrestled with a final rating for this. "The Road" definitely has merit. The style is purposefully minimalist. As others have noted there are very few apostrophe's, no commas, no quotation marks. The font is dull. The paragraphs carry extra spacing. The words are clipped. This all works very well for setting the atmosphere.

As others have offered it is also not the job of the author to explain away all questions. Leaving a sense of mystery can be very good for a story. We should expect that in the end there should be some questions left unanswered. We should expect this all the more when the story is written in a third person form that has a nearly claustrophobic attachment to the characters perspective.

However, we should always expect the story to make sense based on what we know of how the world works. The setting is not just furniture. This is true in all settings, even fantasy and science fiction. In Tolkien's world dragons may breath fire but apples still fall down. As the setting becomes grittier we should expect the rules to be tighter and more menacing.

Unfortunately, rules don't apply in "The Road". We are presented with an apocalyptic world where every meal counts and where people have turned to cannibalism to survive. And here we are presented with our first problem. Cannibalism as a survival technique isn't very efficient. Eating people that are emaciated by hunger doesn't result in a good transfer of calories. Yet the book strongly implies that the cannibalistic cults have been active for years.

Also odd is that they have avoided the bodies. The father and son are constantly coming across corpses. Some of them still smell. More than a few are mummified. Why not boil those down, since they seem to be plentiful, before having to chase and hunt humans "on the hoof"? It isn't that this makes the cults suicidal and stupid, the problem is that there is no reason for them still existing.

There are other logical inconstancies. The father and son eat dried apples from a field in a world were clouds, rain, and snow seem to be constant. How exactly are they dry? The sun can't dry them out and neither can the heat. All of that is gone.

Nothing grows except one instance of fungus. If everything is dead, except the humans, where did the fungus come from? If fungus survived, why not moss? After all of this time why isn't life coming back? Even Chernobyl is virtual a parkland now. There appears to be no radiation in this world yet nothing lives, why? There are fires being set by the cults yet houses, and the author spends some time describing what is wooden frame construction sitting next to the burnt out houses, still stand. Fires are also being set to what, charcoal? The author doesn't have to explain all of these things, but he does have to be consistent.

Since humans, lumbering giants at the tip of the food pyramid, survived he has to show what happened to the mice. And no, canned food doesn't count. Even a survivalist will only pack enough for his family for six months to a few years. The book implies that the son was born at the time of the disaster and he's old enough now to hold a conversation and be useful which implies that he's at least four years old. Why isn't the food all gone? Given that nothing lives, why not avoid the calorie expenditure and sit on any store of food you find rather than tromping through freezing weather to find the shore. Most critical of all, if there is a reason, why not impart this reason to your son?

Since the book never answers these questions it has to rely on style, which is done well, and a questionable emotional appeal. It is, in many ways, the worst of modern decadence. It expects us to not ask any important questions about the setting and instead feel for the horrors that the characters face. It is a very subtle and powerful form of emotional blackmail. It teaches us to be less than human, to fear and not to think about what we fear.(less) "

Jen read and liked Christina's review of I Was Told There'd Be Cake:

"I learned nothing from this book. Except, had I thought to compile my blog posts and everyday suburban thoughts into a book of essays, I could have been published by age 30.

Sloane would be the spokeswoman of my generation if she had anyt...more I learned nothing from this book. Except, had I thought to compile my blog posts and everyday suburban thoughts into a book of essays, I could have been published by age 30.

Sloane would be the spokeswoman of my generation if she had anything moderately interesting to say about us. However, after reading her book about our shared lives of relative privilege I feel as though I was raised in Wonder Bread world with not so much as a dash of Arby's sauce. I have no idea why any of the stories about her life are bookworthy.

Most her essays left me shrugging, "Who cares?" In the past, I have enjoyed reading essayist with backgrounds similar to my own. I take comfort in familiar themes and chuckle over clever turns of phrase. Usually, I learn a word or two. Usually, I feel enlightened. Barring enlightenment, I usually at least have a chuckle.

Sadly, this book is too poorly written, far too lazy in its themes, and fails humor. Reading it was the equivalent of verbal masturbation -there was no anticipation, and there were no surprises.

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Jen read and liked AG's review of I Was Told There'd Be Cake:

"Sloane Crosley is similar to me and my friends in education, background, life experience, career trajectory, and the like. The big difference is she has a book deal, and we do not. As such, I tried to read this with an open mind and not hate her off ...more Sloane Crosley is similar to me and my friends in education, background, life experience, career trajectory, and the like. The big difference is she has a book deal, and we do not. As such, I tried to read this with an open mind and not hate her off the bat.

Turned out that was all an unnecessary gesture on my part, as even someone completely remote from her experience would realize she is one of the most talentless hacks to come along in ages. This book was unbearable! These "essays" (more accurate definition: 8th-grade reading level diary entries) were not interesting, not insightful, and almost unbearably badly written. Every minute I wasted reading them (read: skimming page after page hoping for some word that was worth stopping on) made me want to throw up. Truly one of the worst debuts of the year--which is saying a lot considering this is the same year that has already seen the premiere of Keith Gessen's execrable first novel.(less) "

Jen read and liked Felicity's review of I Was Told There'd Be Cake:

"This book is so awful, so awful I couldn't bring myself to finish it. Maybe I just missed the punch lines (I think these essays were meant to be humorous), but my overwhelming response to these essays was "So what?" Apparently, they are b...more This book is so awful, so awful I couldn't bring myself to finish it. Maybe I just missed the punch lines (I think these essays were meant to be humorous), but my overwhelming response to these essays was "So what?" Apparently, they are based upon Ms. Crosley's life--I hate to break it to her, but I just don't think her life has been that interesting. The final affront was an apparent joke in her less-than-humorous essay about a possible move to Australia (thank goodness for us Australians she never made it there)...after the teenage Ms. Crosley's plans for moving to Australia are dashed, she observes that "My Australian dreams had disappeared into the night like a baby in a dingo's jaw (72)." I'm sorry. She can make offensive comments about Australians all she likes--we probably deserve it. But offensive comments about Lindy Chamberlain and her daughter Azaria is another thing--hasn't Lindy Chamberlain already suffered enough? Just give it a rest people. Give the woman the peace she deserves. Wasn't it enough that the Australian media, the Australian public, and the so-called justice system destroyed her life? No, apparently some dim-witted twenty-something year-old in New York City still thinks it's funny to make jokes about the case. (less) "