±1±: Now is the time One Day (Vintage Contemporaries Original) Order Today!
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Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $7.52
Date Created : Aug 31, 2010 02:34:36
It’s 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day—July 15th—of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself.
±1±: Best Buy This is a most unique and touching love story and friend story.
I hate it when reviewers give you the entire plot (and often ruin the reading experience for you) so I won't give you a lengthy synopsis (you can read the Amazon version online).
All I will say is that whether you're a romantic or a pragmatist, this book will make you laugh, make you fall in love with the characters, and make you think about them long after you have finished their story.
I know that it's currently being made into a movie, so my advice is to hurry up and read this book before the film comes out and screws it up for everyone. on Sale!
±1±: Best Buy This is a notable sequel 25 years on to "Less Than Zero" ,the 1985 novel that made Bret Easton Ellis famous. The original story in "Less Than Zero" novel was about the drugged,empty lives of rich Los Angels teenagers.In "Imperial Bedrooms", the narrator Clay & his friends are engaged in a traquillised "danse macabre" around a nightmarish Los Angels,only now they are all in their 40s with even more money & an increased inclination/capacity for violence.This is a taut & ultimately terrifying novel that wants you to know/understand why people can become monsters.The plot is long-winded & shocking,deserving 3,5 stars that approximate a 4.If you enjoyed "Less Than Zero" novel,you will enjoy this sequel "Imperial Bedrooms" novel, 25 years later. on Sale!
Over All Rating Reviews : Great Deal : $6.99
Date Created : Aug 04, 2010 11:17:12
A gang of adolescent terrorists, a spelling bee, and a terrible plan masquerading as a science project: This is Operation Havoc.
Pygmy is one of a handful of young adults from a totalitarian state sent to the US disguised as exchange students. Living with American families to blend in, they are planning an unspecified act of massive terrorism that will bring this big dumb country and its fat dumb inhabitants to their knees. Palahniuk depicts Midwestern life through the eyes of this indoctrinated little killer in a cunning double-edged satire of American xenophobia.
±1±: Best Buy I'll state from the outset that I greatly admire Chuck Palahniuk for his inventive storytelling, muscular language, and his ability to talk about really nasty stuff in a funny way. So, my reading of his latest novel, PYGMY, is definitely colored by that bias.
I'd say this is a worthy addition to his canon. But like his other work, PYGMY isn't without its challenges. It's dark, visceral, and dripping with various bodily fluids.
PYGMY follows the misadventures of Agent Number 67, sent to the American Midwest by an undisclosed Maoist dictatorship to inflict "Operation Havoc" on the corrupt, fat and stupid running dogs of Imperialism known to us as the American people. He and a number of other agents have been sent in a student exchange program.
At first, you might find the way the story is told to be quite a hurdle. Pygmy (so named by his host family because of his short stature) tells the story in a series of dispatches to his government, using a kind of pidgin English. I got used to it within a chapter or so, but there are occasional paragraphs that are so dense with description you will definitely have to read them twice to understand what he's really trying to say. For example:
"Traversing dark environment en route destination, surrounded mating cry cricket, croak of bulls frog, lecture this agent concerning France missive entitled Le Defi Americain. How admonish intellectual elite over manner United States numerous multinational corporation Kodak, Gillette, General Motor endeavor tangle entire globe ensnared tentacles sucking wealth for digest and fatten parent sovereign American nation, leeching life energy addition opportunity during render subject nation stripped resources and native cultures."
But when Pygmy's voice works, it really sings. I found the book came to life in the scenes where Pygmy describes traditional high school rituals, such as Glee Club, the Model United Nations, school dances, and the adolescent ritual of dodgeball:
"Commencement of ritual, physical superior males select best combatants for accompany into battle, thus ranking all from most-best to least desirable for reproduction during females note close attention. Next then, divided males engage violent assault upon each opposite army, battering with inflated bladders latex rubber.
"Over course conflict, males boasting superior musculature inflict injury upon males typical of superior intellect, although suffering inferior height-to-weight ratio, body mass index, and stature.
"At completion dodgeball ritual, females made full aware which males present most-desirable physical traits. Vanquished males culled by injury, weak reproductive citizens force self-select, redirect, instead impregnate mates, procreate offspring, instead channel aggressions chess club, focus sexual ambitions science club."
And it is the Science Fair that is the focus of Pygmy and the other agent's "Operation Havoc" -- for Pygmy, this is not just because of his orders, but because his host sister, "cat sister" as he calls her, is also working on a science project for the fair, and while she works on it, he falls for her. (She is one of the few Americans for whom he has any respect.) Yes, this is a kind of love story in addition to being a satire.
In many ways, this is a more broad satire than I've seen in other Palahniuk works, but I enjoyed the farcical nature of some of the scenes -- I laughed out loud in a few places. Also really enjoyed the double-edged nature of the satire, which is always the best kind. It makes fun of American culture and in some ways, the satire of totalitarianism is just as savage. (You don't see many books opening with a quote by Hitler.)
I'd recommend it, with the proviso that you should check out the sample chapter, to see if the way the story is told will work for you. on Sale!
