A Visit from the Goon Squad in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Jun 30, 2011 Erin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Not-really-a-spoiler alert: the "goon" in the title is time, and there is an entire chapter done in Power Point. If you aren't appalled by either of these things and you enjoy contemporary fiction, you'll find something to love in this book. I've read several books by Jennifer Egan, and this is her masterpiece - interconnected stories, shifting POV and jumps in time don't always work, but when they do, and they really do here, it can be a whole new way of looking at structure and a unique way to ...more

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Jul 07, 2011 Alison rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I enjoyed this but it's one of those books that left me feeling like I needed to immediately re-read it in order to really understand all the relationships between the characters. The chapters switch around between point of view and in time, and characters who seem peripheral in one chapter become a main focus in another. I generally like this kind of thing, but I know that there are definitely folks out there who wouldn't like this, as it's really more a series of interconnected short stories t ...more

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Aug 17, 2011 Cathy rated it really liked it

Really enjoyed this book. Read Egan's Look at Me last year and didn't really get the hype. Loved this view of how our online lives might evolve. The pacing and layering of each story and how they come together was just perfect. Worth reading for the pages devoted to a story told by charts alone. really creative, but real.
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Jul 10, 2011 molly rated it really liked it

loved it. maybe 4.5 stars. the dolly chapter was a bit over-the-top, but otherwise the whole thing just grabbed me. most reminiscent of david mitchell's "ghostwritten", another sprawling, semi-linked collection of stories (more linked than not here). ...more

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