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Eh. I got this because I loved her at a reading I saw, but as soon as I started the book I realized I hated her style. She's got that "Everything I'm saying is so HILARIOUS AND FASCINATING!" tone that reminds you of your chatty friend who laughs too loudly, and her language is overloaded with adjectives in the style of a 19-year old blogger who thinks this is the key to sounding literate. Sometimes this becomes ridiculous: "With antiaging cream glistening from her pores, my elfin mother would often burst into my room at night just as I was attempting to unroll a Trojan condom onto the absurdly oversized schlong of my relatively petite high school boyfriend." Jesus, what were you talking about again? The endless comparisons to David Sedaris on the dust cover don't help either, because they encourage you to perform the comparison yourself while reading. I didn't hate the book -- there were a few stories I liked, but even they didn't inspire me to read more than a few.

Having gone to prep school, a lot of this rang true for me. But I'm not sure if it would hit home for other readers. Good book but I couldn't really get behind the main character. She didn't have enough going on...

Huh??? one star - 24/08/11 (originally i gave up. But trying again almost a year later) update - currently reading. Attempting to finish all of Murakami's books (excluding hear the wind sing and pingball, 1973) hmmm, not sure what to think about this one. Mixed feelings really. I thought it was fun to read in parts, ie Yuki, the subaru (felt like a character), but something was missing. Need some time to dwell on this book. 3 stars. update: 3 1/2 stars