Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent read...
Review: If you saw the movie (you know, the one with Leo), try and put it out of your head, and above all, don't let that be the reason you don't read the book (unless you went to see the movie BECAUSE of Leo). The book is said to contain elements of 'The Magus', and 'Lord of the Flies', and if you have read both those books, you will certainly feel their influence. In a nutshell, The Beach deals with living in an apparently utopian community, how human nature reaserts itself the minute things start to go wrong, and studies the effect of living appart from society and it's laws. The shocking and gritty ending says it all.The narrator, Richard, is given a map to a place called the beach, one night in a hostel in Thailand, and decides to try and find this legendary place with two fellow travellers. They succeed in finding the beach, a little corner of paradise ringed by cliffs, and are eventually welcomed by its inhabitants, a motley selection of characters who for various reasons have shunned the real world. Shortly thereafter, Richard, a fan of Vietnam war movies, begins to lose touch with reality in a rather sinister way. I started reading this book around 8:00pm and finally put it down at 3:00 in the morning, 30 pages shy of the end, because I couldn't keep my eyes open. I think the reason this tale is so appealing because it speaks to most human being's yearning for a simpler life. Who wouldn't want to spend every day in the sun, sea and sand with nothing to do but enjoy life, fish and gather fruit and grow their own vegetables? (not to mention getting stoned everyday...oh, did I forget to mention the marijuana field on the island?) Ok. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but still, this is a very gripping read.
Rating: 
Summary: A fun read
Review: The Beach is definately a good, fast read. The plot is great, even if it's not that original, and the writing style grabs you right off the bat. Still, there are moments in the book that seem awkward or trying to be a little too metaphorical. Alex Garland has taken up a wide variety of subjects to include within his narritve:the vietnam war, lord of the flies, man vs. nature, man vs. man, video games...etc. While all of these things keep the book from ever getting boring, they don't always seem to fit together consistently. Part of the problem with this is that they don't all neccessarily have that much to do with eachother. Still, this is definately worth reading, just for the sheer fun of the story.
Rating: 
Summary: The Beach: Lovely and Dissapponting
Review: The Beach is a good book with a dumb ending. This adventure story about a young man's discovery of the Beach, an idyllic community of travelers living secretly on an island in the Gulf of Thailand, starts off slow, seeming like it's not going to be worthwile to read, but, gradually, you become absorbed by the author's vivid and honest descriptions. The characters are real and well drawn: each new episode shows us a little more about what makes them tick. Scenes of travellers hanging out together, scenes of daily life and organization in a society that seeks, in some measure, to live off the land and scenes of the main character running through the jungle playing hide-and-seek with the armed guards of a dope field make you feel that the author has been there and done that, or at least can imagine what it would honestly be like. This is what makes The Beach a good book. It is thrilling, but not a thriller, because the action, the hero, the villains and the other characters in the book are not mythic or larger than life like the ones you see in trashy books and Hollywood movies. They are real people from a real world, and we learn this from the hero, Richard, who undresses his television and video game warped visions to show us the truth beneath them. That said, the ending is horrible. Garland doesn't give up his writing talent in the telling of the story, but the story itself just falls apart here. One can imagine the author stuck without a way to the end the story and copping out with what he gives us. It would have been better for him to end the tale simply than to shoot for the pretense of a dramatic climax, but then he wouldn't have been able to market the book as a thriller. Marketing is key. I know this is supposed to be a 'cult' novel and all, but nowadays 'cult' has nothing to do with getting away from the mainstream. It's more about regurgitating the mainstream in a way no one has ever thought of (or cared to think of) before. We should lengthen the term to 'cult of stupidity masquerading as bohemian intelligence', but I digress. The critics loved this book. {Note to Amazon: the quotes from reviews I use here are present not only on your website but on the back cover and first few pages of the two editions of the book I have seen. That is why, in spite of your guidelines I refer to other reviews in this paragraph.} I assume most of them are older, and when they say things like, "Generation X has its first great novel," I'm sure of it. Their enthusisasm is warranted, however, by the fact that the bulk of this book approaches literature. I'm certain that there are much better, but lesser known, books out there, "written by [a writer] under 30," but this book got all the attention because it has the right mix of excellence and trashy marketing appeal. The critics also wet their panties over the "generation envy" expressed in Richard's Vietnam War fantasies. These appear in the games Richard plays with the armed guards of the marijuana plantations which share the island wtih the Beach, in his interacion with Jed, a character who roams the dope fields with Richard, and in the recurring nightmares Richard has featuring Daffy Duck, a crazed Scotsman who unexplainedly kills himself and leaves Richard a map to the Beach at the beginning of the tale. Although the author uses the scenes with Mr. Duck to enlighten some of the hero's motives, these scenes are ultimately unnecessary, unoriginal and certainly not profound. The Vietnam fantasies make a little more sense. They demonstrate the lack of a sense of reality in people more influenced by trashy media than actual experience, but Richard learns (and periodically becomes unstable) through hardening experience. His devotion to trashy media also helps him (realistically, nothing is all bad), for he escapes from some particularly hairy situations by applying some thing he saw on tv. The Vietnam War fantasies also show a hunger for adventure, a desire to taste life-threatening danger and live to tell. The adventure and the desire for a free and simple life offer the greatest appeal of this book. Anyone who travels knows that we travel for these reasons. There is some thing in our society that bores us, imprisons us, appalls us and lulls us into fantasies of a place like the Beach. Blue water, white sand, lush, green jungle, mystic cliffs and waterfall ... seperation ... peace ... forever ... and loving companions to share it with (and with devices like Gameboys and Walkmans, you don't even have to give up video games and pop music). These are the things that make us want to find the Beach, but we are kidding ourselves if we think we can really cut ourselves off from society and from the rest of the world. It can't happen, and Alex Garland knows this. That's why the premise of his book is so good. His writing ability is why the meat of the book is rewarding. His cop-out climax (maybe, since legend has it that the book is loosely based on experience's from Garland's life, he wanted to martyr himself and take advantage of the writer's ability to malign his enemies in print) is why it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Almost great
Review: I enjoyed the book very much but every time the action seemed like it was going to pick up it just kind of fizzled out. Alex Garland is a very talented writer but the book never really seems to pick up a good pace. I would still recommend it though.
Rating:
Summary: Freakin' awesome!
Review: The Beach is a truly shocking and absorbing novel about self-discovery and the loss of innocence, told through the eyes of a Gen-X-er. The story follows the travels of a young modern backpacker, Richard, on his quest for excitement and pleasure. His traveling, which consists of staying in crumbling rooms with thin walls, and eating questionable foods, takes him to Thailand where he meets a young French couple, Etienne and Francoise. Fueled by rumors of paradise and a hand-drawn map, the trio head out on a search for a secret island that holds the perfect beach. They find their beach, but get more than they bargained for when they discover that things aren't always what they seem. In order to keep paradise secret, sacrifices must be made. The Beach, written from a Gen-X point-of-view, is thought-provoking and extremely disturbing, yet intelligently written. It is a truly excellent piece of modern literature that captures the Gen-X attitude and backpacker way of life perfectly. It's a story choked full of excitement, longing, insanity, and of course, drugs. At its core is this message: Would you sacrifice your own self-worth and morality to save the perfect paradise? What happens when that paradise becomes not so perfect? I truly loved this novel. The recently-made movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Richard does not even do the book justice. Although I think Leo is a brilliant actor, I'd recommend reading the book over watching the movie.
Rating:
Summary: what a masterpiece
Review: I enjoyed this book to the maximum extent. i read it in about 2 or 3 days. It's one of those books that you have to know what happend next and you cant get yourself to put the thing down. Its kinda like lord of the flies, but not really. i hated that book and love this book.The Beach is very fast paced and adventurous..very good for a traveler....my whole life i have wanted to venture to thailand..that is one reason i read this book. i think whoever is reading this should read that book..go for it kiddos.
Rating: 
Summary: Great start, but quickly turned dull and boring
Review: The Beach is a solid thriller that starts well but soon becomes quite average. The debut for successful cult author Alex Garland, it follows Richard, a twenty-something lad that stumbles across, with his two friends close in tow, an idyllic, secret beach community. The paradise, however, ultimately brings about their downfall. The premise is intriguing; however, the book's thorough examination of social politics draws it out and ultimately, it is easily two hundred pages too long. Had the author kept it tight and controlled, The Beach would have been a cover to cover nailbiter... but that's not the result. Richard, heavily influenced by media, society and western culture, stumbles across a dead body in his hotel room in Thailand. Attached to the body is a map, but to where? He meets and eventually befriends Etienne and Francois, a couple holidaying at a resort. They decide to follow the map to the mystery island marked by a black cross. Once there, they inadvertantly locate a hidden paradise full of people that have escaped the real world. It seems to good to be true, and for a while, it is. However, the social politics, as well as half the island being controlled by Thai drug dealers, brings Richard and his friends into a lot of danger. The Beach contains a number of thrilling episodes, but they are all too few and far between. A lot of the sequences in the book simply be there just to extend the book and don't serve much purpose to the central theme of there always being an inescapable society pervaded by the media, electronics and ultimately, the world itself. After three hundred pages of what can be summed up in a few sentences (the first hundred pages are very good), the book's ending is sadly truncated and unsatisfying. Sure, the book is written well and Garland allows himself more than enough time to flex his literary muscle, but he seemed to forget that there's a conspicuous lack of anything compelling the reader to continue as soon as Richard and his friends reach the beach paradise. It is there where the book turns sour. The title is fitting: 'The Beach'. That's pretty much all it's about, really. Three hundred pages of beach: "look at the beach", "isn't the beach marvellous", "oh what a corker of a beach" - and little more than that. It's like a plum: sweet and delicious at the beginning, sour when you reach the centre... and the ending is just thrown away.
Rating:
Summary: Great action, unpredictable story
Review: A true masterpiece. Do *not* watch the movie before reading this book, since the movie does no justice whatsoever. This book I would highly recommend to backpackers / people who like to travel. It is the story of a backpacker's quest for adventure in the most remote places of the world, and how he stumbles upon a secret beach which becomes a modern day version of Lord of the Flies. Written with excellent detail, great action, and an obviously intelligent and well traveled author- you won't be able to put it down after the first chapter.
Rating:
Summary: The Beach
Review: This book appealed to me on two levels: as a reader, and as a traveler. The premise sucked me in right away: a longing for the ultimate vacation spot, the ultimate beach. And before I knew it I was addicted to and facinated by it. It was like nothing I had read before, and this too appealed to me. The main character's manic trains of thought and the author's vivid style of writing were what kept me addicted. I highly recommend this book to anyone unhappily suck in an Oprah's book club rut. It is one of the freshest books I've read in the last few years.
Rating:
Summary: Mixed up Kids of Today
Review: I avoided this book for several years--despite the plaudits it was getting as an important "voice of a generation" type book--because it sounded really annoying. I did go ahead and read his second book, The Tesseract, and quite liked it, which gave me hope for his first book. As it turns out, what I had thought would be a celebration of the 20-something, end-of-the-century, pan-European, backpacker/stoner set, is in fact, a fairly broad indictment of them. The narrator is a fairly typical example of this subculture, a semi-jaded, chain-smoking Brit who is disaffected with, and alienated from, the hum-drum life back home, and escapes through travel. Wandering around Southeast Asia, he's searching for an elusive eden that hasn't yet been discovered by others like him. Garland has written a kind of self-conciously hallucinogenic thriller, tarted up with endless pop-culture references, as the narrator makes his way to just such an eden with a French couple, thanks to a map given to him by a suicide case (who keeps reappearing and conversing with the narrator). The eden he discovers is populated by 20 or so others like him in a secret island hideout with free dope nearby. The subsequent portion of the book has gotten a lot of lazy comparisons to "Lord of Flies" when it really has less to do with the break down of societal rules/norms/values, than it does with the perpetual quest for eden (and this generation's search for a meaningful life), and the lengths to which people will go to preserve it. In that sense, it has a lot more to do with Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"--which is given repeated oblique references by way of "Apoclypse Now." Garland populates this eden with a bunch of recognizable low-rent Euro globetrotters, and makes them all distinct, but somehow not quite human. It's easy to form a mental image and voice for each character, but one never cares about any of them. In that sense, its grimly satisfying to see them self-destruct and destroy their eden. In the end, I applaud how Garland threw a bunch of themes together and managed to make a readable first novel of them, however I can also see why people might love the book, while utterly missing its point.
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