Rating: 
Summary: Have we forgotten how to read? Allegorical brilliance!
Review: As a fan of the author's first, widely (mis-)read book, I was so looking forward to her next effort, hoping she would take her lyrical imagination and gifts for lucid prose to new heights. I have never been more shocked. Rather than soaring even higher than Amelia, this book plumbs a kind of literary depth that you won't often find outside Dante. If Amelia was a dream, this one's a nightmare. If Stephen King and Virginia Woolf mated, the result would be this wild, wonderful, brilliant book. I admit, I was put off by some of the negative reviews (oh me of little faith) that the back-biting, presumably jealous journalism types have doled out to this dark little gem, but what gets me is that no one seems to be reading the book on its own terms - as allegory - as fable - as metaphor. Beckett herself (the narrator, a wonderful, sassy, smart girl, and how glad I am that my own girls will grow up with such a heroine, as I did with Holden Caulfield) tells us, again and again - it doesn't matter if something is real. What matters is if it's true. Well this book is like a brace of cold truth on all of our faces - about youth, about the culture, about the country - and it's also as entertaining as can be. Bravo, Mendelsohn! You've done it again....and once again, the people seem to be missing it (although I've actually read quite a few great reviews around the country on line - maybe the New Yorkers are simply too jealous of your first book's success to know how to read this book for the allegory it is - but that doesn't excuse my fellow Amazonians, who usually read with such distinction....) Before writing this, I went back and reread my own review of I Was Amelia Earhart, and everything I said there is even truer of Inocence: Mendelsohn's writing remains positively entrancing, "a compelling hybrid of Hemingway, Garcia Marquez, and Virgina Woolf." And as with Amelia, I'm suprised by how few "picked up on the book's exquisite irony, its dry wit, its utterly deadpan sense of humor." My final comment may need some amending: I wrote that "I have a feeling that her next book will more clearly establish Mendelsohn for what she is -- the writer of her generation." Well, Innocence definitely confirms that in my mind, but if the reviewers, professional and otherwise, continue their campaign of idiocy, we may have to wait for her next book for the rest of the country to catch up with the plain unvarnished truth: she's the best we have, a heavyweight like very few others writing today.
Rating: 
Summary: A Bit Too Pretentious For My Taste
Review: Having just finished Jane Mendelsohn's "Innocence", I must say that I am sadly disappointed. On the recommendation of a friend, I expected a ferocious social satire, a commentary on the teenage obsession with media and pop culture. I was instead treated to a very poor approximation of "Catcher in the Rye", mixed with a bit of "The Bell Jar" and far too much "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" style vampire paranoia. The novel centers on the self-absorbed teenage girl Beckett, with whom we are clearly intended to sympathize. However, instead of understanding Beckett, I was continually disgusted with her. I never for a moment believed that her delusions were real; I was completely shocked in the end when Beckett is NOT confined to a mental institution. The reader is expected to take her ridiculous explanations of "truth" as some sort of enlightened reality. Instead, I was confused and depressed. Teenage suicide is seemingly played as a cliched plot device, never dealt with as a bleak reality. Though Mendelsohn peppers her unbelievable, undeveloped story with some poetic descriptions of New York City nightlife, the whole is a painfully strained gothic parody. Don't expect a well-thought out and beautiful allegory; this was, in my opinion, very little more than glorified pulp.
Rating:
Summary: Read this with your heart, not your mind!
Review: I began reading "Innocence" and after the first 30 pages or so, I was trying to reconcile in my mind whether or not the storyline was a dream. So....I started over and began reading this book again, WITHOUT my intellectual predilection to examine and "prove" every detail in a novel. That's the whole point of this novel, as "Beckett" the main character herself mentions several times, that her view is not believed by those around her. She is a teenager who has recently lost her mother in an accident and is facing womanhood, moving to a new school, where she doesn't fit in, dealing with her father's new romance with the school nurse. The actual events of the novel, while I never had a strong feel for whether or not they were real, as Beckett says, were "true." I think that this novel is as another reviewer said, mostly allegorical, and that the entire point is to look through the eyes of Beckett, as she struggles to process momentous changes in her life. After I read the book [in one sitting, by the way] and closed the cover, my thoughts were just as Beckett said...It doesn't matter if it was real, it was true... This book is not for everyone, I will concede that point. It is filled with so much imagery and the fantastical thoughts of a teenage girl in turmoil that it is impossible to tell which parts are truly supposed to be real. But after reading it, well, it doesn't really matter. I was entertained, and concerned, because I agree that there is great disolutionment in our youth. This book points that out so well.
Rating:
Summary: Read this with your heart, not your mind!
Review: I began reading "Innocence" and after the first 30 pages or so, I was trying to reconcile in my mind whether or not the storyline was a dream. So....I started over and began reading this book again, WITHOUT my intellectual predilection to examine and "prove" every detail in a novel. That's the whole point of this novel, as "Beckett" the main character herself mentions several times, that her view is not believed by those around her. She is a teenager who has recently lost her mother in an accident and is facing womanhood, moving to a new school, where she doesn't fit in, dealing with her father's new romance with the school nurse. The actual events of the novel, while I never had a strong feel for whether or not they were real, as Beckett says, were "true." I think that this novel is as another reviewer said, mostly allegorical, and that the entire point is to look through the eyes of Beckett, as she struggles to process momentous changes in her life. After I read the book [in one sitting, by the way] and closed the cover, my thoughts were just as Beckett said...It doesn't matter if it was real, it was true... This book is not for everyone, I will concede that point. It is filled with so much imagery and the fantastical thoughts of a teenage girl in turmoil that it is impossible to tell which parts are truly supposed to be real. But after reading it, well, it doesn't really matter. I was entertained, and concerned, because I agree that there is great disolutionment in our youth. This book points that out so well.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding and colorful!
Review: I began reading this book late one night before bed and after what seemed like minutes turned into hours. I was mesmerized by the way the book was written, it pulled me in and kept me interested from one page to the next. I finished the book in 2 days! I have only found 3-books in my life that have entertained my imagination as this one did. I felt sad when it was done because I wanted to follow Beckett everywhere and learn about her life and how she deals with reality or non-reality! I could feel a sense of closeness to her. The words come alive and bounce off the pages, they fill your head with wonderful vivid pictures and scenes! I felt as if I were right there with her looking into the moment. I read a review by a young girl, 15 yrs old, who found the book to be outstanding as well...I am 30 and this book was just as good to me as to her. Absolutely colorful, creative, and I can't say enough great things about it... wonderfully written!
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding and colorful!
Review: I began reading this book late one night before bed and after what seemed like minutes turned into hours. I was mesmerized by the way the book was written, it pulled me in and kept me interested from one page to the next. I finished the book in 2 days! I have only found 3-books in my life that have entertained my imagination as this one did. I felt sad when it was done because I wanted to follow Beckett everywhere and learn about her life and how she deals with reality or non-reality! I could feel a sense of closeness to her. The words come alive and bounce off the pages, they fill your head with wonderful vivid pictures and scenes! I felt as if I were right there with her looking into the moment. I read a review by a young girl, 15 yrs old, who found the book to be outstanding as well...I am 30 and this book was just as good to me as to her. Absolutely colorful, creative, and I can't say enough great things about it... wonderfully written!
Rating: 
Summary: What?
Review: I just finished reading this book and came on here to read some reviews to see if maybe someone got something I didn't...Well, I am glad I bought the book at the dollar store but I still want my dollar back..plus some money for the time I wasted reading it. I felt like I was reading a diary of a schizophrenic teenager...which would have been fine but the intro made it seem like it would be more than that...if the character wasn't constantly spewing lunacy throughout maybe I could have felt something for her...but I honestly was waiting for the part where she was hospitalized and put on meds and wakes up more aware and in touch with reality...I know some may want to say they seen this or that and you have to be truly "aware" to understand the metaphors,etc..(i.e. that society especially older women in society suck the life blood out of the young girls with envy and the desire to steal their youth by recapturing their own.) That would have been okay but the book was an overdose of metaphors...it could have been good if the author tried less to impress and more time telling the story without using the "butterflies" to tell it for her.
I have heard that one of the Beatles hits..Lucy in the sky with diamonds is actually refering to a trip on LSD! Could that be the case here..but in reverse? Writing while on a trip? I mean used tampons in place of tea bags Sorry but this authors attempt to be an offspring of Stephen King..is a joke. If you are looking for a good psychological thriller stick to Stephen King..if you are interested in novels with stories about what teenage girls feel and think..read Judy Blume. ..."it isn't what is real but what is true"..don't waste your time or money..you will be greatly disappointed...and that is the real truth!
Rating:
Summary: Oh Those Poor Trees!
Review: This book is one of the worst that I've ever read in life. It doesn't have any person that you want to learn more about, in fact, by the end of this novel, you'll be glad Beckett finally shut-up. The novel seems to be writen in some horrible attempt at poetry at points and lacks a plot. In fact, it is not until near the end of the novel do we learn anything about the storyline. For a book that seemed to gain praise from many, it makes me sad that the trees, that were used to make this book died in vien. Do yourself a favor and stay away from this book. I'm just glad I only paid a doller for it.
Rating: 
Summary: "Washed up on shore"
Review: This book is truly brilliant. I enjoyed every moment of it. The lack of punctuation and quotation marks make is seem like one flowing poem. Innocence is a dark story, one that is so believable in its own horrific way, I could not put the book down. I'm sorry so many people cannot see through to the beauty of this incredible novel. I hope to see many more like this from JAne Mendelsohn.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: This book really appealed to me as a 15 year old. I was never interested in reading until I sat down and opened this book. It took me a day to read the whole thing! I couldn't put it down! In a way it showed what life is like for teenagers! It did a good job explaining what teenagers have to go through, with losing a parent, moving to a new city and a new school and having your dad fall in love with someone that is trying to harm you! It is just awesome! I recommend this book to anyone, people of all ages, would enjoy this book!
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