Stripper Lessons

Rating:
Summary: The Life We All Live
Review: A perfect rendition of the life everyone lives . . . lonely, secluded, and surreal. The novel screams of O'Brien's talent to connect with the seedy and realistic side of our world. First class entertainment. Maybe it should be retitled "Life Lessons." A must read for everyone, especially O'Brien fans.

Rating:
Summary: Skip it
Review: Best thing that happened in this book, was when I closed the cover after finishing it. I was compelled to read this novel after greatly enjoying "Assualt on Tony's" which was a page-turner describing an alcoholic's downward spiral during a city riot. However, this novel's main character, Carroll, didn't even drink. Tom O'Brien was clearly dealing with unfamiliar subject matter (sobriety) and was, to put it bluntly, bad at it. Second biggest complaint: a book called "Stripper Lessons" where a bar (also non-alcholic) has naked women as the subject matter and barely a kiss took place. A story containing no sex, no drinking; describing a sad, lonely guy consumed with talking to a woman (any woman), after buying new clothes and doing his boring day job was hardly worth the time. However, I highly recommend "Assault on Tony's" which had the most incredible descriptive allure (plus drinking and sex which were his obvious area of expertise). It's hard to imagine that the same author penned these two completely diverse stories

Rating:
Summary: lesson unlearned
Review: I disliked this book, not because of the lack of sex and alcohol (as did another reviewer), but because the characters seemed so woodenly constructed and the environment unrealistic. I don't know how much research the author did for this book, but I certainly didn't feel like he's ever had a meaningful conversation with a stripper in his life. I was expecting something out of the ordinary, but basically "Stevie" was the same typical stripper archetype that appears in tv movies. I could relate to the character of Carroll to a degree, but he lacked any fire. The unfoldment of the plot, with each chapter being a day/night seemed to work, but unfortunately it was a spark in a mostly unimpressive book. Carroll's struggles at work were boring and lifeless. I know that it was meant to portray the ennui of his life, but it shouldn't bore the reader. Overall, the book was disappointing because of a lack of surprises and a lack of humor.

Rating:
Summary: The legions and legions of lesson lesions
Review: I need to collaborate on a biography of this O'Brien fellow...any takers?

Rating:
Summary: Not very revealing
Review: Stripper Lessons is the story of a two-dimensional nerd going through some personal growth thanks to a two-dimensional stripper. Most of the details and subplot are more tedious than anything else. There were a few things mentioned in the book that seemed outdated for something published in 1997, leading me to suspect the the author may have had this manuscript lying around and was able to publish it only after the success of Leaving Las Vegas.

Rating:
Summary: The Life We All Live
Review: Stripper Lessons took me two places I will probably never go in real life -- a strip club and the mind of a lonely outcast. I found myself identifying with Carroll, and while Stevie never became a real flesh-and-blood person in my mind, I think she was meant to stay unreal because that's how Carroll saw her. I thought this was a poetic, moving study of one quietly desperate man's attempt to fit in, and it made me want to read other works by O'Brien.

Rating:
Summary: You can relate to Carroll,but you'd never admit it to anyone
Review: The main character, Carroll, is a milktoast loner, and O'Brien lets us see inside the head of the type of person most people would never get to know. The books reads like part poetry/part confessional, and his unconventional writing only adds to the story (e.g. capitalizing "That Place"). People like Carroll are everywhere, lonely and afraid, and we probably pass them every day at work, on the streets or in the hall. Stripper Lessons also gives us a glimpse (metaphorically speaking) at strippers, though it would have been nice to get a little more insight into those strip for a living, why they do it, how it makes them feel, and what they think of all the Carrolls they meet day after day.