Important Things That Don't Matter

Rating:
Summary: Take it for what it is
Review: As an editor who reads manuscripts all day long and who barely has time to read through the 30 or so mags received each month, I hardly ever have time to read a book. However, you can get through this gem in a few days and it will have you thinking about it for days and weeks later. For those who are sick of chick lit--finally a story with a male devulging (as well as a male can--sorry guys) snippets of his childhood and his evolution into manhood. I am looking forward to Amsden's next book.

Rating:
Summary: a good read, goes quick, but . . .
Review: I agree more with the person who wrote "This book so doesn't matter" rather than the others. Although I read this short book in two days, and it engaged me, I never got a sense of development in the characters. His father, who is basically a dead-beat dad who can't get his life together, is paid a lot of attention but Amsden never gets to the root of this (or other) character(s), i.e., I don't feel like I know this guy. On the same note, the book is not very descriptive (except for the first chapter). It seems like common experiences like sex and pop culture are used to compensate.

I imagine that if you've read Eggers' AHWOSG, you would find this book a little unfulfilling b/c it is basically the same pop-culture coming-of-age story style but with a lack of explicit emotion to major life-shaping events (and w/o the heartbreaking or genius part or commitment to things). Thus the title "Important things that don't matter." I found this annoying b/c the narrator, who is never named, just floats through his life and experiences with little regard or reflection on these events. We get little emotion from the narrator/main character. What's more is that those who are important to him, namely his mother and friends, are said to be too precious to be discussed in this book. Like this book is a bag of trash that would taint the important things that matter to him. I didn't quite get this part.

I liked how Amsden changed scenes--he would get into one event and then get into others and then bring up the original event pages later. Though this is a common structural device in novels, I liked how he did it. However, when I was reading the book, he would get into a situation and the writing would get going, then he would change the scene. I didn't like this aspect, despite its apparent contrariness to the first sentence in this paragraph.

He also changes tense a lot which is just kind of distracting; it doesn't really create a sense of urgency or wholeness that the author is trying for.

The pages of the hardcover version are different sizes, cut weirdly. So flipping through it to a certain page is an actual task.

I did like this book. I just felt like pointing out aspects that seemed wrong or could have been done better. I laughed a few times, like when he's seven y.o. and watching a porno while his dad snorts coke. Also, Amsden somehow lets the reader (especially a 15-25 y.o male) get into his story, which is essential to good fiction. He does this well. There are some good parts. I look forward to his next book.

Rating:
Summary: More Chick Lit Tripe
Review: Will it never end? Another meandering metrosexual book that does absolutely nothing for our generation. An imititation of an imitation of James Joyce, who was imitating a million monkeys sitting at typewriters. The characters are boring. The plot is non-existant. The blurbs are outrageous. The hype is unbearable. The editors at the corporate conglomerates will lose their jobs, and they will have to go hype mutual funds instead. They will be tried by the greater public for spamming the tables at Borders and Barnes and Noble with this insignificant trype, killing trees and engaging in deceit under the guise of irony to pay the rent for their NY roach-infested studio apartments. Well, lying has no place in literature, just like this mediocre, underhanded book.