Crossing California

On the surface, I really have nothing to relate to the characters in this book - while it's set in Chicago, it's not in a part of Chicago I've ever been to. Similarly, I'm not (nor have I ever been) a Jewish teenager, and the events of this book end a few months before I was even born. Still, the characters are incredibly and instantly understandable and sympathetic, even though they're not really nice people. Maybe because they're not nice people, makes them real. Also, this book is one of the funniest things I've read in a while, not in a Christopher Moore kind of way, but partly just from the pathetic realness of it all. The sections from the point of view of Larry the masturbator set me laughing uncontrollably for minutes at a time.

I rate this book a solid three stars or a weak four stars. I had very high expectations going into this book. One, because my partner grew up in Rogers Park in the 70's and I have heard numerous stories about it and Two, because I lived in Chicago in a neighborhood just south of Rogers Park and have been there many times and know the neighborhood myself.

There is a lot of detail about the area. It really brings the neighborhood to life and in many ways, Rogers Park is the star of the book rather than the characters. The first 2/3 of the book were excellent. I was getting into the characters and their lives and I felt like the story was going somewhere interesting. Something happened to the last 1/3 of the book and I cannot put my finger show more on what exactly happened.

Some characters introduced early in the book went nowhere or were given very incomplete story lines, like Muley's dad, the parents of Lana and Larry and even the Charlie/Gail relationship. They just kind of hit dead ends without real explanations or conclusions. Muley, who was so important in the first part of the book merely drifted away into an editing room and emerged briefly at the end. Larry, the Jewish rocker disappeared completely after dominating much of the story. The list goes on.

I read the last pages and ended up in a Rogers Park dictionary. I was baffled...what had just happened? Where was the rest of the story. I am truly hoping it is in the follow up The Washington Story. I am not jumping straight in though. I am going to digest this one a little more and see if I can like this book more than the 3 stars I am giving it. I want to love it, but I only fell in like with it. show less

Meet the members of a Jewish community in Chicago, Illinois. Jill Wasserstrom is a liar. She told Lana she gave Muley Scott a hickey. Lana, the lied-to party, comes from a wealthy family (father is a radiologist, mother is a psychologist, and brother Larry was accepted into Brandeis). Lana wants to be an actor. Fake hickey recipient Muley wants to be a film maker and has a mother who works in the library and cleans houses for a living. Muley is in love with Jill. Jill's father, Charlie, was fired from a restaurant job (owned by Alan Farbman) because he talked to a reviewer (Gail Schiffer-Bass) who he later marries. Jill's sister, Michelle, is a tough cookie. Brandeis-accepted Larry wants to be a rock star drummer. The list of show more characters, some important, some not, goes on and on. It is this group of characters who drive the plot of Crossing California and make the story interesting. California Avenue itself (of Chicago, Illinois), lives and breathes like another character in Crossing California. This is a slice of Jewish life in a early 80s Chicago community at its best and worst. show less

One of my favorite books in a long time. Loved the characters and the author's details made me remember parts of my own childhood that I'd forgotten.

not a mind-blowing piece of fiction, but certainly clever and insightful; a unique, entertaining read about kids in chicago in the 70s

witty, funny, good and easy read....Jill and Mulley are great characters.

I read this because I live in the Chicago area. Not being from that neighborhood, nor jewish, I didn't have a lot in common with the characters. A good, but not great, book.