This is not a book that can be easily put down and picked up again. I don't think I've read a book in a long time that needs to be 'chewed and swallowed' quite like this one. Egan's writing is like the treasure in an archeological dig-you have to dig deep to get to it. (And yes, I know exactly how cliched that sounds.) She is very easily able to explore the irony of a neighborhood that can buy their children birthday parties involving plaster sculptures made in each of the guest's faces, but can't buy their way out of familial disputes, child abandonment, disgrace, embarrasment, affairs, and alcohol and drug abuse. None of the individuals in the book can quite achieve what they want-because none of them know what they want, or, have the guts to follow their dreams.

Carly is one of the most unlikely heroines you'll ever find. She's overweight, unmotivated, prefers watching TV to almost everything else, is infatuated with her best friend, has a father who made his fortune in panties and bras, is stepped on by an overbearing mother, and is (not surprisingly) depressed. And she hates reading, even though the object of her infatuation, Hunter, is a straight-A student and always has a book in hand. It takes a down-on-her-luck author to attempt to show both Carly and Hunter that while reading may not change everything, it has the power to change you-and what you decide to do with that power may change everything about you.

Gibson relies heavily on one of her favorite writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald, to help her along in telling her story. She also uses invitations, emails, essay headings and auction listings in a creative montage that makes the story's format interesting to take apart. Gibson relentlessly takes the writing process, publishing industry, and novel apart in a way that shows her to be devoted and an expert in her art. While there is an incredibly huge cast of characters, it's not difficult to remember them, as Gibson gives us delicously gossip-y little tidbits 'Desperate Housewives-style' about them that make them hard to forget. Gibson is a master at what she does, making her characters flawed and realistic, and in the end giving them a happy ending that may not be 'real,' but is optimistic. ( )

Part snarky parody, part biting social commentary, part witty meta-fiction, part beautiful lyricism - this book isn't going to be for everyone, but its sheer audacity in the unique department and its brutal honesty make it a story I'm not likely to forget anytime soon. ( )

Carly has "never met a book she liked" so her well-to-do parents decide to hire an author to write a novel just for her - one she'll have to love. Hilarity ensues.

This is an ambitious, smart novel which I highly enjoyed. Not only does it have a very original structure - sections are divided by literary device - but it also presents main characters that are worth spending time with. I loved the relationship between Carly and her crush/best friend - golden boy alcoholic and avid reader Hunter. But the relationships between supporting characters, such as Carly's author, Bree, and her college chum and literary idol Justin (who happens to live in Carly's community) are just as compelling.

This is one of those that you could definitely read a second time and pick up on a lot that you might have missed the first time around. I thought some of the novels within the novel sounded brilliant and I wouldn't mind reading them too! ( )

I enjoyed the story in How to Buy a Love of Reading, but I LOVED everything else—the references and allusions to great literature, the subtle social commentary, the smart humor, the sharp and decidedly un-melodramatic exploration of teenage angst, and every last nuggets of nerdy goodness. I can’t even really explain it—there are just a ton of wonderful little gifts for booklovers hidden in this book. So you should read it and find out.

Read my full review at The Book Lady's Blog. ( )

How to Buy a Love of Reading is about a high school junior named Carley Wells. Carley’s only interests are reality TV and Hunter Cay, the most popular boy and the love of her life. Carley’s parents, who have more money than sense, are worried about Carley’s lack of appropriate interests, so they decide to give her an interest in literature by commissioning a novel in honor of her Sweet 16. The author will live at the Wells residence and write a novel that meets Carley’s approval. The only person they could find willing to take the commission is Bree McEnroy, author of an unsuccessful experimental meta-fiction about Odysseus’s journey through the Internet.

So we’ve got David Foster Wallace meets the reluctant teenage reader. It’s clever. Gibson fills the book with references to The Great Gatsby and to contemporary literary trends and techniques. There are some wonderful musings about why writers write what they write and how the reader interacts with the text. And then there are the stories characters tell themselves but don’t write down. All of the characters are creating their own versions of the truth; some versions are just more damaging than others.

When the book focuses or writing, or rather on storytelling, it’s marvelous. But there’s so much more going on here that doesn’t seem to directly relate—as in Bree’s novel, there are “subplots of no consequence,” but it’s never clear if they’re meant to be inconsequential. As I was reading, I vacillated about whether Gibson was trying to make her own novel a meta-fiction or a standard plot-driven novel or a bit of both.

When the novel focuses on Carley and Bree and their growing understanding of the stories we tell, it’s a gem of a book. But that plot competes with too many other plots and subplots. As it is, there’s too much other stuff to chip away to find the gem inside.

See my complete review at my blog. ( )