2. A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

I had very few expectations going into this book, which is weird for me. I mostly wanted to read it because it won the Pulitzer Prize and some people I know enjoyed it. Everything I knew about the plot I'd learned from the very vague summary on the back of the book, which uses words like "brilliantly" and "exhilarating" and "redemption," which honestly didn't make it sound too appealing. But the book really was wonderful.

Last night I watched Blue Valentine, which made me think of this book, and reading the book today reminded me again of the movie. They're two very different pieces--the film is a long, painful look at one couple, and the book is full of short chapters about many different characters whose lives are painfully connected. I guess what links the two in my mind, besides the short period of time between my consumption, is their sadness. It was a very particular type of sadness--not the uplifting kind that makes you feel good to cry about like Toy Story 3 or Up, or the kind that is kind of cathartic (I'm not going to list all the books I've cried over. Just know it's a lot).

A Visit From The Goon Squad is just sad. There's nothing uplifting about it. There are inevitably some characters you like more than others (for me it was Sasha, which I feel might be typical), and you read the whole book hoping that things will work out for them, for all the characters really, but you know that it probably won't, because that's life and it hurts. In the end, very few characters achieve the "redemption" promised by the back cover. And the last chapter just gives a very dim hope for the future. It imagines a future where everyone (even babies) is addicted to some portable, iPad like device, and we all wRt lk thS n txTs. The amazing thing is that by the end of the chapter you can understand everything they're saying.

This is really a great book, even if it is a downer. It's not overly sentimental, and Egan doesn't try too hard to be different. She's an amazing writer with amazing stories to tell. I almost wished that every chapter was its own book--I'm dying to know more about these characters. But that's the way I am with a lot of books--greedy for more.

Next up: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen because sometimes you have to keep reading critically acclaimed books.