Inventing Victor

Rating:
Summary: Great read!
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed all of the stories in this collection. I especially liked the story about the white couple dealing with their obsessive need to have African American friends. I could be one of those people! If you are looking for some witty and insightful stories about regular people, then I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Voice of Her Own
Review: Jen Bannan's debut collection may make you squirm, but you won't be able to put it down until the very last page. A winning first effort from a promising new voice!

Rating:
Summary: unnerving readers
Review: Jennifer Bannan's "Inventing Victor" unnerves the reader with the sharp clarity of its insightfully rendered characters. Those characters make some want to put the book down, because to read on is to take on the challenge of recognizing some painful flaws that we all share. This book unabashedly looks at racism, poor self-esteem, a whole host of 21st century hang-ups, and allows us to sigh with relief after each denoument. After all, we know that we're not that bad, after all.

Rating:
Summary: Unsentimental Journeys
Review: Jennifer Bannan's new book "Inventing Victor" tramples one taboo after another, and leaves you bruised, battered and ready for a good stiff drink. Her prose takes you on one deliciously painful trip after another, and you love her for that. These characters are so open: they know their flaws, but they don't try to hide them from you. Instead they're reckless and foolish, and smart enough to know better, but they just can't help themselves from hurtling toward disaster. Bannan never lets you know just how or when the damage will go down. When it does, you walk away shocked, bruised and exhausted, but unable to put the book down. I read it one sitting. There's the latina school girl who invents a fictitious older boyfriend to impress her friends. It's a lie with no where to go but down. Then there's the mother whose abused children have been taken from her. She gets pregnant again anyway, hiding her secret from her lover and her parole officer. My favorite was the story of white urban couple who want more black friends, but can't figure out why saying so to the black couples they meet keeps backfiring. Like so many of the characters in Bannan's book, they're infuriating and embarrassing to observe, but you like them anyway, and you cannot bring yourself to look away.

Rating:
Summary: Unsentimental Journeys
Review: Jennifer Bannan's new book "Inventing Victor" tramples one taboo after another, and leaves you bruised, battered and ready for a good stiff drink. Her prose takes you on one deliciously painful trip after another, and you love her for that. These characters are so open: they know their flaws, but they don't try to hide them from you. Instead they're reckless and foolish, and smart enough to know better, but they just can't help themselves from hurtling toward disaster. Bannan never lets you know just how or when the damage will go down. When it does, you walk away shocked, bruised and exhausted, but unable to put the book down. I read it one sitting. There's the latina school girl who invents a fictitious older boyfriend to impress her friends. It's a lie with no where to go but down. Then there's the mother whose abused children have been taken from her. She gets pregnant again anyway, hiding her secret from her lover and her parole officer. My favorite was the story of white urban couple who want more black friends, but can't figure out why saying so to the black couples they meet keeps backfiring. Like so many of the characters in Bannan's book, they're infuriating and embarrassing to observe, but you like them anyway, and you cannot bring yourself to look away.

Rating:
Summary: Keith Banner calls these stories "brutal honesty"
Review: Keith Banner, just reviewed in the New York Times for his "Smallest People Alive," also from Carnegie Mellon University Press, says on the Inventing Victor back cover: "Jennifer Bannan's Inventing Victor is a sharply written collection of funny, unnerving short stories that never settle for easy answers. Bannan's characters, self-reflective losers negotiating their ways through life with the low-volume enthusiasm of pro-bowlers, narrate each story in deceptively simple voices. But the stories themselves are never simple or deceptive. Bannan is after a kind of truth most literary writers try to avoid: brutal honesty in the face of all the bad things human beings do to each other. The title story alone is worth the price of admission. Fast-paced yet creepily intense, hilarious and very sad, it tells the story of a 15-year-old girl who can't stop lying, even while she knows this lying is slowly destroying her life. As you read this story, you start questioning all the lies you've ever told in order to impress people, all the ways in which dishonesty is sometimes all you have to keep yourself interesting, and maybe even aware of who you are."

Rating:
Summary: quick interesting read
Review: lots of "what's going to happen now?". first 2 stories ok, but from "inventing victor" on the stories are quick reads about real people and with situtions that makes one smile. the characters will seem "like someone i know". some extemely good writing. if you like contempory short stories, read this one.

Rating:
Summary: A reason to love short fiction
Review: This is the kind of book you want to give as a gift to all your friends. In fact, I did that. It's a beautiful collection of witty and moving stories, with characters who are so vividly drawn they seem like people you might have known once. It's the kind of book you'll read more than once; the kind of book that makes you remember why you love short stories. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: A reason to love short fiction
Review: This is the kind of book you want to give as a gift to all your friends. In fact, I did that. It's a beautiful collection of witty and moving stories, with characters who are so vividly drawn they seem like people you might have known once. It's the kind of book you'll read more than once; the kind of book that makes you remember why you love short stories. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: We've all read stories that wipe out any trace of energy by trying so hard to be profound. And then there is gorgeous prose that doesn't manage to say much of anything. And then there is Inventing Victor. With pitch-perfect language, fresh takes on familiar insecurities and fantasies, and one wicked sense of humor, this one stays with you long after you're turned the last page. A really stunning debut.