Rating: 
Summary: Funny Angel
Review: My third exposure to Kerouac, though enjoyable and interesting, only rates four stars from me.
Having read Dharma Bums and On The Road prior, Subterraneans, which has a far more limited landscape than the aforementioned, also has a lesser 'growth' for the protagonist, who is a thinly veiled Kerouac.
The story centers on the brief love affair of novelist Leo Percepied with Mardou Fox, an African American beauty, ten years his junior. Taking place during the 1950's; one of the major obstacles in the relationship, from the outset, is the racial difference of the two characters.
But Percepied suffers from other self-imposed obstacles, being unable to fully admit his love of Mardou to himself, until she begins to pull away from him.
Barely over 100 pages in length, this novel, while rich in the same Beat-generation characteristics of his other works, shows far less of a 'voyage' for the protagonist than other novels. While you do gain some insight to the life and person of Jack Kerouac, it is limited.
But don't let that discourage you from giving this book a glance. It is easily digestable, and very enjoyable. Kerouac's Benzadrine-laced prose is, as always, a 'trip'...even in a story that doesn't go very far.
Rating: 
Summary: intoxicating magical story
Review: of a doomed loved, written in beautiful poetic style that captures the sad and tragic essence of the story and atmosphere.
You can't really explain the beauty of the book, the storyline has been repeated over so there's no need to go into, but this story is the kind that gets inside your soul and becomes apart of you.
Rating:
Summary: The agony of love
Review: Probably the finest expression of the pain experienced in a lost relationship. Beautiful, honest Kerouac. Not altogether coherent, but push through and enjoy fine passages.
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Summary: very good fiction related to Beat beginnings in San Francisc
Review: the start of a counter-culture relationship in the Beat literature movement; author develops several main characters with quality talent; author goes beyond comtempory lit. syle to establish his own unique method
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Summary: Kerouac's American Bohemia
Review: The Subterraneans is an autobigraphical novel based on a summer love affair between Kerouac and a young black woman in New York City in 1953. The setting of the story was moved to San Francisco at the behest of the publisher.The book tells the story of the love, and its end, between Leo Percepied, the Kerouac character, and Mardou Fox. Mardou is half Cherokee and half black. She has grown up in poverty in Oakland and has suffered serious emotional breakdowns. She has gone from lover to lover among the Bohemia of San Fransisco until she meets up with Leo. The book shows some of Kerouac's understanding of his own character. He describes himself (page 1) as both an "unself-confident man" and as an "egomaniac". A few pages later (page 3) he confesses that "I am crudely malely sexual and cannot help myself and have lecherous and so on propensities as almost all my male readers no doubt are the same." The Subterraneans are a group of hipsters, aspiring artists, drop-outs, con men who inhabit that bars and streets of San Fransiscon graphically described in this book. The book is full of mean streets, cold water flats, alleys, run-down stores, cheap bars, late evenings, pushcarts, and sad mornings. Leo is initally sexually attracted to Mardou. When he learns and listens to her he truly falls in love. She is indeed a lovable character. The picture of the love is convincing. Unfortunately Leo/Kerouac remained throughout his life a mother's boy. Mardou tells him, properly and sensibly "Leo, I don't think it good for you to live with your mother always" (p47) Leo nonetheless can't part from his mother. He also has doubts about his ability to commit to a black woman, particularly given the prejudice of his mother and sister. He dumps Mardou. It is his loss. The book is written in long stringy sentences to imitate the "bop" improvisatory style of jazz riffs. I was put of by the style when I began the book but came away concluding it fit the subject matter. The apparent spontaneity and the sincerity of the narrative move the story along. The book describes well the American hipster of the 1950s. It is ultimately a story of the need for love and the difficulty of commitment. It is a sad story and I think in the emphasis on the wildness of Bohemia can easily be misunderstood. Kerouac may have been somewhat wiser as a writer than he was as a man. He was able to take his inability to form a lasting relationship with a woman and describe it. He turned his experiences and personal difficulties into a poignant and lasting novel. Art in Kerouac as in so many writers becomes a way of understanding and transcending one's life.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing masterpiece of american lit
Review: This and Big Sur prove to me that Kerouac was worth all the hype. I as most started with On the Road. but soon graduated on to real literature. OTR and Dharma Bums were great reads, but each was fake self grandising fare. This book and Big Sur were gut wrenching tales of truth.
Many have said they had trouble reading or uderstanding this book due to the style it was writtem The first time I read this book I drank more than jack on a 3 day binge, and could still follow the story. If you had problems that has something to do with you, not the way this masterpiece was written.
Rating:
Summary: Dic-a-didaly-doda
Review: This book is not read, it is felt! Any-words but like musical notes on sheet, waiting for vocals to strumb them to the wind. In feeling this book like a drummer feeling drum-durrrm you will discover the nature of Kerouac.....Otherwise, you'll reveal your nature--boredom!
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Summary: Just A Warning...
Review: This is a great book, but difficult. I just want to warn people who are picking this up because they loved "On The Road" or "The Dharma Bums"-- this is a different kind of novel. This book is not so much a linear story as a mood. Kerouac wraps the reader into a bizarre world of lonely parties, flashbacks, and long conversations. Very little actually "happens". However, if you can push your way through the hyper sentences of random disconnected thoughts that run on for pages, you will be amply rewarded.
Rating: 
Summary: Not writing; just typing
Review: This is a poorly written and overly praised book. Its only claim to fame is as an account of Kerouac's one night stand with Gore Vidal, which Vidal also discusses in his memoir, Palimpsest.
Rating:
Summary: Wow! change the way you think
Review: This is an amazing book. Not only does it have a facinating plot and realistic characters, (mainly due to the fact they're based on real people), the writing style is a powerful lucid force that suits the content down to the ground. The rushing prose create a momentum that carries the story and portrays the frenzied reality of Kerouac in love. Jealousy and disillusionment are key to this story and you can observe how the heavy drinking Leo, the author and main character, and Mardou, his black, mental unstable girlfriends' relationship evolves. This is certainly not a book to be missed and its short too. It limits its scope to the events of a short period with the story unravelling through accounts of specific episodes that allow the characters to develop. The best book I have ever read is this slim tome and I urge you to read it - a love story with anguish and a unique writing style.
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