From the Bookshelf of Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge…

A Visit from the Goon Squad

Jennifer Egan

Start date: January 5, 2015

Finish date: January 12, 2015

Why we're reading this: I chose this as a pulitzer prize winning book and because one of my cousins liked it.
[close] I chose this as a pulitzer prize winning book and because one of my cousins liked it.

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

No group discussions for this book yet.

What Members Thought

Feb 18, 2011 jess rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2011, audiobook-d, fiction

This book started a little slow, and dragged at the beginning. It seemed kind of like any other "punk rock" "music biz" kind of story. I didn't bond with the characters and the storyline was, well, nothing seemed to ever happen. 1/3 of the way in, I started to really like it but I wasn't sure if I *really* liked it, or if it was the sort of appreciation you have for the familiar stuff you've spent some time with. Halfway through, almost without even realizing it, I was completely hooked & the bo This book started a little slow, and dragged at the beginning. It seemed kind of like any other "punk rock" "music biz" kind of story. I didn't bond with the characters and the storyline was, well, nothing seemed to ever happen. 1/3 of the way in, I started to really like it but I wasn't sure if I *really* liked it, or if it was the sort of appreciation you have for the familiar stuff you've spent some time with. Halfway through, almost without even realizing it, I was completely hooked & the book held my complete attention to the end.

The book was surprisingly postmodern, but the storytelling is conventional enough. Egan finds time for considerable reflection on the pressures of technology in the digital age, and some of Lulu's marketing jargon and theories made me l-o-l. And this quote from the last chapter? I had to park my car to write it down.

Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term she'd invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words--"friend" and "real" and "story" and "change"--words that had been shucked of their meanings and reduced to husks. Some, like "identity," "search," and "cloud," had clearly been drained of life by their Web usage. With others, the reasons were more complex; how had "American" become an ironic term? How had "democracy" come to be used in an arch, mocking way?

The plot moves through shifting perspectives along an inconsistent timeline, exploring how various characters intersect at different moments in their lives. It was hard to keep up sometimes, probably b/c I was reading the audio book & couldn't flip back to remember if this guy's girlfriend is that guy's oldest daughter or not? I got a little confused around the African safari subplot, and I'm not sure if I picked up on all the complex references and subtle nuances. I did my best. There are several good uses of non-human characters; New York City, Time, Technology and Fame/Notoriety are major players. It's a book I think Andy Warhol would enjoy, although he might not admit it.

What I hope I remember: how this book is sort of John Irving-ish (I don't mean that to be offensive or banal) with a smear of futuristic/sci-fi/post-war perspective, complicated relationships and dynamic characters, multiple plot lines and everything/all of it rotating like small planets around a giant sun (Benny Salazar) in the center of the solar system of drunk/drugged punk/rock storytelling. I also hope I remember the diversity of the female characters in this book. The dudes are all interesting enough, but the ways that the ladies are complicated & multifaceted really made the story for me - e.g. La Doll/Dolly and her history, the fateful party she threw, and the way she experiences/constructs fame. and Sasha, who is at least as important as Benny Salazar in the way the story is experienced by the reader. It really made me think about how we change when we are moving through life, sometimes without even noticing, and about the power/privilege of being able to re-invent yourself.

Also, for a book with a guitar on the cover, this had a lot less music in it than I expected. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jul 28, 2018 Larissa rated it it was ok

I am uncertain about this book! I had heard a lot of great things about it and looked forward to reading it, but I didn't love it. It is a book compiled of several stories from the major and minor characters point of view at different stages throughout their lives throughout the book and how they dealt with significant or insignificant moments in life that gave them a glimpse of reality and time (the "goon") and meaning of life! The stories came from the first hand perspective of each character ...more

Like · see review

Aug 22, 2011 Dana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lbc-book-club-1

This was perfect audiobook "reading" on a road trip since, due to the touted postmodern story telling, it felt like a bunch of short stories with some connections between characters. The only problem was that I kept wanting to go back and find characters, and on Audible I couldn't do that. It was quirky and some of the segments were great, others not so much, but all in all it was enjoyable and will make for an interesting book club discussion on this form of story telling. ...more

Like · see review

Apr 20, 2011 Jen (NerdifiedJen) rated it really liked it

Shelves: audio-book

I feel like I just read 3 or 4 separate books. The details keep popping into my head and I keep wondering how all those stories were in the same book.

Though maudlin at times, it keeps from being one of those "life sucks and then you die" morale-destroyers through the jigsaw puzzle storyline with zany time jumps, unique and intelligent language, and the underlying humanity of the characters.

I highly recommend the audio book form, though the painstaking reading of the graphs at the end of the Po ...more

Like · see review

Mar 08, 2012 Amy Ellis rated it liked it

This got the Pulitzer Prize, so I wanted to read it. I can see why--it is written really creatively, with the tiniest random characters getting full chapters. A lot of the characters were redeemed in the end, and it came around full circle, which I loved. Be warned, though--pretty vulgar, unfortunately.

Like · see review