A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010)

Sasha is a kleptomaniac who desperately wants to get her life together. Her boss Bennie is struggling to re-define himself after his divorce. A Visit from the Goon Squad tells snippets of both their stories as well as those of the many people connected to their lives - a college friend, a career mentor, a high school bandmate, a now-distant uncle, an ex-con brother-in-law, and so forth and so on. Each character has his or her own chapter (although it's not always immediately clear who is speaking), and each chapter has its own style. Rather than moving chronologically (or with any kind of logic really), the reader goes back and forth between the past, the contemporary, and the future with each new chapter. In many ways, this book is more like a series of interconnected stories than a novel. Because it is not by any means traditional, this book definitely isn't for everyone. Honestly, while I was reading it, I was at first a teeny little bit bored by the beginning, then I was enjoying it by the third or fourth chapter, but it wasn't until I got to the last chapter and the powerful ending that I realized just how much I liked the book.

Seeing all the characters in their individual stories gave the reader a richer experience but also in some ways made it more difficult to get to know each character as you only spent a little bit of time with them. The cast of characters was diverse, although each had his or her own psychological or moral issue; the characters were not likable per se, but they were certainly interesting. The story covers a wide range of issues from drug culture and the power of music to fears of a police state and an inauthentic future dominated by technology with little real social interaction. Egan is certainly very talented and writes in a variety of voices. The most interesting of these was the disembodied first-person "you" chapter from Rob and the presentation/slideshow chapter from Alison. This book begs to be read in a book group (like I did, which helped to really pick up on all the connections and nuances) and to be read a second time to see how it all comes together once you've discovered how the book works. If you're okay with tackling something a little bit outside of the norm, I highly recommend this book. ( )

What a load of self-indulgent rubbish. I got fifty pages in before I just had to give up - the people were absolutely insufferable, the style was terribly knowing and contrived, and in general this was a complete exercise in trying to win an award rather than write a book. Also, I'm fed up with reading books that include weird, excessive, references to male genitalia. I'm not a prude but between this and the swaddled penis incident, I'm starting to worry a little bit for the sake of my sanity. ( )

A Visit From the Goon Squad is a set of loosely tied together stories that connect interrelated characters centered around the music business. Lou, a teenage coke addict, later becomes a friend of bass player, Bennie. Bennie later becomes a music producer and hires Sasha, a kleptomaniac. She sleeps with Alex, who much later ends up handling the comeback of Bennie's high school buddy, Scott. There are numerous more linked sections involving the same main characters as well as numerous peripheral characters. Each section of the book is told from the viewpoint of a different character. I don't really think I'm the audience the author intended when she wrote this book. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the social commentary parts of the stories and the author's use of a PowerPoint as a storytelling strategy was extremely creative. Some of the relationships were very confusing. Bennie and Sasha were the most interesting of the characters. I think the author did a great job of putting together an extremely creative concept but I kept putting it down. The fact that I kept picking it back up again leads me to believe that in the end, I cared more for the story than I expected. " ( )

I really thought I would like this book, it won awards, had decent reviews and the first chapter was really good. Unfortunately, it's all down hill from there. I usually have no problem picking a book up after a few days, or even weeks, and remembering right where I left off. This book flops between so many characters and time periods that I found myself lost quite a few times. I was even disappointed that I wasn't given much of a chance to like or dislike any of the characters as I think that is an important part of a good book. You become almost invested in the characters you are reading about, you care about what happens to them. Sadly, I could not care about the characters in this book. ( )

Fantastic book- my favorite "recently written" fiction in a very long time. I really liked the book's structure of multiple narrators and points of view. ( )