Journal Entry 1 by indygo88 from Lafayette, Indiana USA on Friday, October 14, 2011

"Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. With music pulsing on every page, A Visit from the Goon Squad is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption."

Received via PaperBackSwap.com (Unabridged on 8 CD's; read by Roxana Ortega) 

Journal Entry 2 by indygo88 at Lafayette, Indiana USA on Friday, December 23, 2011

I'd read Jennifer Egan's "The Keep" a few months ago & was left with a lukewarm feeling after that one. But A Visit from the Goon Squad is totally different. I would never have guessed they were written by the same author. Very different stories, very different formats, very different writing style. This book has gotten high praise, and deservedly so. With a multitude of characters, each chapter is a glimpse of a time period within the past 40-50 years, but in a seemingly random order. Not until the reader is fully immersed into each chapter does he/she begin to realize how it fits into the rest of the story. What you may consider a subtle character in one chapter may show up as a main character in another. It's a rather difficult book to explain, but brilliantly written, and is one of those that begs to be re-read over again. I read this on audio, and was taken by surprise a bit by the abrupt ending, but overall, this book is impressive.