For this category I elected to read A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I'll be honest, the title made it sound a lot cooler than it was.
Let's just get right to it. This book begins with a short story about a girl named Sasha talking to her shrink about her tendency to steal things from people. Sasha tells the story about a blind date she went on with a guy named Alex. At this date she stole a wallet from a lady in the restroom. I found this chapter very interesting and was really excited to read the rest of the book.
Moving on to chapter two. This chapter goes back in time a bit. We see Sasha working as an assistant to a failing music producer named Bennie. The majority of this chapter focuses on Bennie. The next chapter goes even further back and introduces even more characters. The majority of the characters are in show-business in one form or another. Producers, public-relations, musicians, etc. It is nice to see -- realistically -- that not everyone in show biz lives a glamorous life. These people work hard, suffer, and maybe succeed.
It sounds like this time travelling thing might be kind of confusing, but it isn't. The chapters are very lengthy and I think that that helps to make sense of the time situation. The problem is that it is almost like this is a book of short stories. Sure each chapter has at least one character from a previous chapter, but it is not a continuous story. It is also difficult to distinguish who is telling the story at times. As will any book/story, some characters were much more likeable than others. This made the long chapters about unfavorable characters difficult to get through.
I'll admit that I found Sasha to be my favorite character. She interested me in the very beginning, I wish that she had a more dominate role in the other stories. When we get her as a "supporting character" in a few other chapters, we are able to get glimpses as to what has shaped her into what we saw in the beginning and what she ultimately becomes.
The stories seem to come full-circle when the final chapter returns to Alex, from Sasha's blind date in chapter one, working for Bennie.
Needless to say, this book wasn't a big hit with me. Sure it won a Pulitzer, but that doesn't automatically mean it's amazing. You can skip this one.
2 Stars