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Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
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Geek Love

by Katherine Dunn

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2,561501,010 (4.1)90
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Strange and wonderful novel full of interesting characters. This is one of the few books I've read several times. ( )
kren250 | Jun 11, 2009 |  
I am going to warn you now that this book is not an easy read. Not because of its choice of words or its style, but it will emotionally and mentally beat you up. I personally love books that make me feel, and this one runs the gamut from rage and disgust to sympathy and empathy. It definitely answers the age old question, “What do you do when your circus side show starts to lose popularity?” (Ok maybe YOU have never thought that, but I’m sure someone out there has), and this book’s answer is, “Breed your own, at what ever costs necessary.” And the Binewski family pays, and pays handsomely (pun intended).

Meet the Binewski family: Al and “Crystal” Lil run a circus… well they did, though over time the traveling circus has lost some appeal, and with exciting new acts being thought up all the time, they needed to think of something that no one could beat. Of all of the possible ideas they could have come up with, they decided that breeding their own freak show would be the most affordable, and likely the most crowd grabbing way to do so. “Crystal” Lil takes different drugs and radioactive materials during her pregnancies and the results are her five surviving children and menagerie of still born, but formaldehyde preserved less viable offspring. Read More ( )
FandomaniaKelly | Apr 8, 2009 |  
Tried this one but I just couldn't get into it. I had a tough time getting into the story about a family of circus side show performers (carnies). I didn't find the characters to be very sympathetic just whiny and uninteresting. ( )
sunfi | Mar 29, 2009 |  
How do you review a book like this? There's an outrage on every page, and I mean that in only the most admiring sense. This vivid, surreal story features mutated individuals, but underneath all the lovely, diverting carnival atmosphere, is a scathing indictment on the Ameridcan focus on appearance. There are appalling, although true-to-life, events and consequences, but they're all seen from the inside out.

I don't know if Katherine Dunn has published anything else, but "Geek Love" secures her a place in my pantheon of amazing, awe-inspiring authors. ( )
LukeS | Mar 17, 2009 |  
Amazingingly imaginative. This book is both engrossing and disturbing. Just when you get used to it, the author ups the ante. And as freakish as it is, she makes it all seem kind of normal, too. A must-read for anyone who loves books. ( )
Dally | Feb 21, 2009 | 1 vote
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People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Awards and honors
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
"When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets," Papa would say, "she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing."
Quotations
It’s interesting that when these individuals choose--and it is their choice always--to endure voluntary amputations for their own personal benefit, society professes itself shocked and disapproving. Yet this same society respects the concept that any individual should risk total annihilation in war, subject to the judgment of any superior officer at all and for the purposes ranging from a promotion for the lieutenant to higher profits for the bullet company. Hell, they don’t just respect that idea, they flat expect it. And they’ll shoot your ass if you don’t go along with it. (Arty)
Last words
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Book description

Amazon.com (ISBN 0375713344, Paperback)

A wild, often horrifying, novel about freaks, geeks and other aberrancies of the human condition who travel together (a whole family of them) as a circus. It's a solipsistic funhouse world that makes "normal" people seem bland and pitiful. Arturo the Aqua-Boy, who has flippers and an enormous need to be loved. A museum of sacred monsters that didn't make it. An endearing "little beetle" of a heroine. Sort of like Tod Browning's Freaks crossed with David Lynch and John Irving and perhaps George Eliot -- the latter for the power of the emotions evoked.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400)

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