Because Time's a Goon....

I had high expectations for A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I have several Goodreads recommendations for other books by Jennifer Egan, plus there were several other readers I follow with great reviews for the book, so I figured "Meh! Why NOT?" Plus I was standing in the recent publications section of the library and it was looking at me - begging me to take it home.

I think the red flag to start out with is that people are either criticizing or raving about the chapter that's made up of a "Power Point" presentation. It's a bunch of slides with diagrams and charts. Actually, the content of that chapter was the most interesting from the whole book. To me, it felt like a flow chart for Egan to diagram a new novel (like an outlining tool,) so it doesn't quite sit right with me. What was in that chapter I feel has the makings of a really great book. I'm just certain now she's started an odd trend which is a bit too gimmicky to put into any other books. So if you've writing a novel, please STOP and THINK before copying her method!

I think what really threw me out of balance was the clutter of point of views. It didn't bother me so much that there were multiple point of views, but that they just felt thrown together. I noticed at the start of the book their were remarks about bits and chapters here and there actually appeared as magazine articles and stories, which I think adds to the cut and paste feeling to the book. It probably would have flowed together cleaner if it had read in chronological order. I'm sure others would argue that that's the point... blah, blah, blah! Sorry, it was just harder to digest (for me), and it made the book feel really "clippy" to run back and forth in time AND change the voice of the story.

I can't say that I HATED the novel. Music means a lot to me, but books about music or musicians (failures or not,) just turn me off. I really thought this book would be different, since it was so highly regarded from 2010. The basic subject matter of the book is just plain not-my-thing, so it was a struggle for me to keep attention throughout. Now, I can't shake the image of Iggy Pop out of my head. Plus I really hated the klepto and she was kinda a prominent figure in the story. From the get-go we weren't off to a great start!

I'm not going to shy away from Jennifer Egan's other books. Her writing IS good and her there are still a couple of her other works which were listed as highly recommended. But for the Goon Squad, sorry Egan: 2/5 Stars.