Rating: 
Summary: Tasy Cereal....but with an aftertaste
Review: "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" is an essay collection that draws comparisons between popular culture and important social and interpersonal issues. It also happens to be extremely witty at times. Chuck Klosterman is a writer for Spin magazine, so he clearly knows pop culture and can write quality essays. The best of his work here truly encapsulates life. Who cannot relate to this quote? - "Every relationship is fundamentally a power struggle, and the individual in power is whoever likes the other person less." That profundity, by the way, is from an essay that discusses the merits of "When Harry Met Sally"; another section proffers the genius of Billy Joel. Yes, Klosterman is a bit of a hipster geek. Pop culture references are sprinkled throughout the book, but sometimes it stretches a bit too much for the sake of a clever analogy. In the forward, Klosterman assserts that, at times, he feels as though "everything is completely connected." Unfortunately, he is not adept enough to make all of his essays into a cohesive whole (as other reviewers have noted). Ultimately, the book feels like a loose collection of unrelated but very funny skits. Although that debit doesn't sink the book, it does lessen its impact. In addition, Klosterman is sometimes too self-aware for his own good; several times, he makes reference to liking something "unironically" - such as "Saved by the Bell." His definitive goal seems to be achieving irony. While this credo certainly makes "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" a funny read, it can become rather tedious as well. Overall, I'd recommend this book, but with reservations.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the year's best...
Review: Chuck Klosterman's "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" is the 27th book I've read this year, and only Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" and Alison Burnett's "Christopher" rank higher in my list of delightful, insightful, brilliant books. I ask two things of books-- that they force me to stop everything I'm doing to finish them, and that they have something new about life to tell me. I am often disappointed on both counts. "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" is full of brilliant insights; the kind that you wish you had thought of first. The essays manage to be both focused and digressive at the same time, a trait that only the best writers can pull off. Klosterman is witty, bitter, and romantic at the same time, kind of like his alter ego, Woody Allen. (Or so he says in the first essay. I think he looks more like a Scandanavian Mike Mills.) My 3 favorite essays in this collection are the first, where Klosterman presents us with an unavoidable truth: Generation X has been ruined by "fake love"; the second, which offers a brilliant analysis of just how fake(and influential) reality TV is; and the last, which confirms that I am not the only Gen Exer who has given serious thought to the worldview of Tim LaHaye. (That's the "Left Behind" author, for those of you who haven't.) A great discovery; well worth the hardcover price.
Rating:
Summary: caveat reader
Review: Face it... you'll love this book or hate it... unless you can enjoy it for what it is and then disgard of it immediately after... then you'll be as ambivalent as I am about this title.
Readers who enjoy it: you are vapid and so deeply immersed in pop culture and self un-aware that you are to be parodied for your complete identification w/ this work (the author himself would... and does--thus, the true meaning underlying the subtitle).
Readers who deplore it: you are justified in your distaste of it... but only if you are so serious about yourself that you lose sight of what it is you are reading in the first place. CK is acutely aware of all of Cocoa Puffs's shortcomings, and, should he lazy unenough and unoriginal enough (which of course, he is), he could easily come out with a new printing w/ an afterword entitled: Mistakes We Knew We Were Making... In short, either stick to Being and Time or shut up a get a sense of humor... and don't act like you didn't live through the experiences that make up CK's subject matter.
This is Reality Bites: A Ten Year Retrospective... CK is so completely consumed w/ being ironical that he often forgets that life really can be deeper and more significance than an existential inquiry into Saved by the Bell... Still, I'd being lying if I said that I didn't laugh out loud consistently during the first 100pps...
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and surprisingly solid
Review: I expected a weak treatise on modern media, and was surprised by an honest, sometimes dark and always entertaining view of pop culture.
Traversing from Saved by the Bell, to the Sims to the evil of When Harry Met Sally, Klosterman observes our mass culture, and makes sense of what it means to us. What succeeds in the mass media environment does tell a lot about us, and this book brings some solid points of view to it. View it as a lower brow version of Bobos in Paradise.
The book reads quickly and well, as you're drawn into finding his jaded and barbed opinions on all these cultural icons. It'll go quick, and give you a new lens to view what's popular around us.
Rating: 
Summary: Exhileratingly funny and insightful and near-perfect.
Review: I know Chuck Klosterman probably hates being compared to other contemporary writers today but I'm going to: Chuck Klosterman is the David Sedaris of popular culture essays. He is insightful, without being annoying; funny, without being pretentious; and most importantly, he extrapolates meaning from an amalgam of pop culture artifacts and the end result is one very satisfying read.Although I found out in the last chapter of the book that my "kind" (although I am a "born-againer" I haven't read "Left Behind" or seen the movie version and don't plan to anytime soon---so maybe I'm not really in this same "group" or "subculture") shouldn't be reading this book (or rather, wouldn't be reading this book) I gladly read on...fully aware that I was going against the ropes and finished what has been the most enjoyable piece of reading I've encountered in quite some time.Sure, there are 2 or 3 chapters here that don't really connect as well as Klosterman would like, but for most of the book...these essays are right on.Whether he's writing about The Sims, The Real World, or why country music really does tell us more about us as humans than we'd like to think, Klosterman breathes into his work an addictive and collective aurora that had me laughing and underlining like mad.However, having said that I will say that this book probably cannot be appreciated by people who aren't at least mildly "into" films and music of the past 30 years. I believe Klosterman is writing to the 18 year old and to the 33 year old (and everyone in between) yet, I'd find it hard for people outside of this to be able to connect well with his rush of references flooding in and over and out of so many pages here.All in all though, what a fantastic and wonderful read this book was. Finally, a book about pop culture that isn't brainless and idiotic but rather, sophisticated and idiotic and altogether remarkable. Kudos to Chuck. Keep 'em coming.One of your born-again readers.
Rating:
Summary: Senseless Rambling
Review: If I was looking for some random perspectives on life (such as which Billy Joel album is the best, or why Real World characters are all the same), I would spend more time with my parents. At least then I would get a free dinner!
Rating: 
Summary: A little heavy on the Cocoa Puffs...
Review: It is kind of unfortunate when journalists take themselves too seriously. In Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman basically tries to show everyone how many useless pieces of pop trivia he can cram into one sentence and make it sound relevant. While this can make for some interesting and funny comparisons, on the whole, the book was self-aggrandizing and really not worth the effort. Contrary to the subtitle, this is not a book about culture, but about how the author believes that because he thinks something is cool, it is culturally significant.
He whines about the fact that all of the best artist and musicians in the country seem to come from middle-America, but his home turf gets none of the recognition. He attempts to claim that the only movies that will really "matter" are those that he liked. He takes on celebrity in the least meaningful ways imaginable. Yet still, the book is well written and at times hilarious. Why? I don't know.
If you like reading funny writing with a faux-philosophical bent, this book is for you. If you actually care about anything, I'd suggest passing on the Cocoa Puffs.
Rating:
Summary: Meh
Review: It was impossible to read these essays and not imagine that they were typed as spouted, realtime, by a smart, overcaffeinated english major sitting on a couch in a dormitory. You can almost see the (cheap, industrial) carpeting and hear the 'k-cchunk' of the vending machine in the background. This can be fun, but what we all learned in college is that it's important not to take couch-speaker-guy's opinions as seriously as he takes them. That's the case here, too. Klosterman guesses at things when ninety seconds of googling would have given him the facts; he makes assertions and then, rather than backing them up, goes on to further assertions, possibly in hopes that you'll be too busy trying to keep up to start poking holes in his argument; and every now and then, despite his open contempt for people who use words without understanding their meanings, he does this himself (e.g. describing this collection as a 'manifesto').
Rating:
Summary: Very Entertaining.
Review: Klosterman's book was well worth the price on the cover. His essays are very witty; any book that makes you laugh out loud several times is definitely a keeper. The stories are insightful looks at the things that seem to mean so little but always seem to mean so much- television shows, video games, music, and others. Also of interest are the brief "asides" between each essay, which give even smaller portions of Klosterman's wit.
The reason I hesitate to give this book the full five stars is that it seemed a bit uneven to me- that is to say, not all the essays were of the same caliber. However, the best ones are good enough to make you forgive some of the ones that never quite click.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful, funny
Review: This book is basically for anyone who likes to read about pop culture. When I say pop culture, I don't mean celebrity gossip, I mean random, interesting references to music, movies and books. This book is chock full of the latter. Practically anyone can enjoy Klosterman's takes on "coolness" and how it relates to sugary cereal, internet porn, serial killers, reality and simulated reality, a Guns N' Roses tribute band, and more. Right now I'm reading this book for the second time in less than 2 weeks. Highly reccommended.
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