My reading life has been expanded A LOT, now that I've met Gary Shteyngart. Fast paced and hilarious, to say the least.

Enjoyable and fast, but did not live up to the hype. Though when you consider that reviewers compared him to Martin and Kingsley Amis, Henry and Philip Roth, Bellow, Waugh, Rushdie, Nabokov, Malamud, Heller, Bulgakov, Franzen, Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Faulkner, Woody Allen, Norman Mailer, and Henry Miller, how could anything possibly live up to the hype (or satisfy such divergent comparisons)?

Possibly because of unlucky timing, it suffered from the fact that a large part of the plot is fairly similar to a large part of the plot of The Corrections. But it also gets bogged down in the weight of its own quirky characters and its self-consciously humorous writing, as so many contemporary novels do. The thing about those comedic authors Shteyngart was compared to is that they make humor writing seem effortless, while in this book it is labored, as if the author is pausing to give you time to laugh at the right moments.

All in all, however, it's a pretty fun read. Especially having been to Prague in 1993, as well as having a close family member who's lived for more than a decade in the former Soviet Union, I greatly appreciated many of the smaller details, and caught myself thinking "It's so true!" a lot. ( )

This was a fun read. I enjoy reading Russian authors and that regional culture. So that was fun. It's a light and fast read. Follows the strivings of a young Jewish immigrant with successful, driven Mother, as he builds his fortune. However, the guy is totally contemporary. So it's kind of like Bret Easton Ellis meets Henry James. Lots of gangster fun, drama, and the writing was super for me. I spoke to an Azerbaijani who lived for a while in Moscow and he said it was totally unrealistic. ( )

This is one of the few books that really lives up to all the reviewer hype. It is really hilarious. I found myself laughing out loud on every other page. Vladimir, the main character is sort of pathetic and lovable, you want him to do well, but also to grab him by the shoulders and shake him a bit while yelling 'grow up'! Although half way through the book, the story takes a turn for the really bizzar, Shteyngart manages to pull it off. Anyone from an immigrant family will appreciate this book. Or anyone with a Jewish mama... or anyone with a sense of humor in general! ( )

A young New York raised Russian runs to Russia to hide from his mistakes in NY. In Russia he learns to con rich American students out of their parent’s money. His ego makes him believe he’s invisible but learns the hard way that he’s not. ( )