|
Loading... Sellevision: A Novelby Augusten Burroughs
LibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendationsLoading...
won't like
will probably not like
will probably like
will like
will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. As much as I love Augusten Burroughs, I did not like Sellevision at all. It was very obvious this was his first book as the plot jumped all over the place as if he had a lot of ideas, but couldn't decide on how to blend them together. My biggest problem, though, was the characters; I didn't care about them. I couldn't empathize with them, could care less that their lives sucked, etc. Another one of those books that took me forever to read because I didn't enjoy it enough to not put it down, and avoided it because I wasn't enjoying it. (  ) melancholycat | Sep 13, 2009 |  Sellevision was recommended to me by a friend, who suggested the book because I love the writing of Max Barry (of [[ASIN:1400079373 Company]] and [[ASIN:0140291873 Syrup]] fame). It turned out to be a great match. Sellevision is a hilarious book -- simultaneously dark humored and lighthearted. It follows the lives of four hosts on the Sellevision network, a home shopping network. It might sound a little boring, but in the course of a year there is incest, genitals on live television, a nervous breakdown, a dead rat, and copious amounts of alcohol. (  ) shoesonwrong | Nov 5, 2008 | Far be it from me to reject a book that focuses on the too little explored topic of facial and arm hair. Not since T.S. Eliot's Prufrock has the topic gotten such literary attention. Nevertheless, the subject matter may be a little thin to build a novel on. One can see that Burroughs is building up his writing chops with this book. Most people start out with the thinly veiled autobiography, then move to pure fiction: he has gone the other way, finding his stride when he draws on his personal experience. That is because he really cares about himself. The people in this novel, not so much, and it shows. Even superficial ninnies deserve some love, at least they do if you want readers to care enough to keep reading, and these characters just don't get any from Burroughs. ( ) robinamelia | Jun 30, 2008 | Funny and crazy, in your face humor...just like Burroughs' memoirs. (  ) Djupstrom | Apr 26, 2008 | Not the best of Augusten's but anything written by him has entertainment value. ( ) xmaystarx | Jun 14, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 031226772X, Paperback)Light and funny, with a bitter aftertaste, the action of Sellevision takes place behind the scenes (and on the set) of a successful television shopping network, where a feminine role model, Peggy Jean Smythe, the married, Christian mother of three, begins receiving suspicious e-mail from a viewer who insists that Peggy's hairy earlobe is obscuring her presentation of jewelry during the broadcast. When Peggy fails to respond to the e-mail, but silently waxes her lobe, the cruel notes escalate, until Peggy believes herself to be suffering from a hormonal crisis that has given her a mustache, a gruff voice, and the manner of a lumberjack. Meanwhile, one of her cohosts, Max Andrews, has been fired for accidentally exposing himself during a children's special, and learns just how undesirable a commodity a penis-baring ex-Sellevision host can be on the job market. The book is an unusually smooth read for a first novel, with six or seven truly inspired lines. --Regina Marler(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:19 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia in English (2)
