This was entertaining, a little unbelievable, and the author is sometimes a little smug and full of himself but in its way a page turner.

RELEASE NOTES:

On bookshelf.

Lately, St. Elmo's has been a hotbed of Bookcrossing activity! Yesterday I released a few books on the shelves of the "reading nook" across from the cash register. But when I got home, I noticed I'd forgotten one of the books I had intended to release. So this morning I went back to St. Elmo's to do just that (and grab some lunch).

You can imagine the schoolgirlish giddiness I felt upon seeing three books -- that weren't mine! -- with "I'm Free!" Post-Its on their covers. Since this one, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, seemed to promise the most, I picked it up and left mine in its place.

If this keeps up, maybe St. Elmo's will become an unofficial (or even an official!) BookCrossing Zone! I'll keep my fingers crossed and report back as to whether Dave Eggers' book lives up to its title.

Thanks, awiturtle!

Wow. What a disappointment.

I'm still debating whether it's because the title promised so much or because the first few chapters led me to believe the book would deliver on that promise. Eggers had me until his family left Chicago -- that's when the dark humor and wit yielded to a maniacal rant. It's almost as though the first 50 or so pages were written by someone else.

As awiturtle says, Eggers is smug. Very smug. But it wasn't obnoxious in the beginning -- it was morbidly amusing. His world was an inside joke, shared between himself and the reader. And it was good. Particularly the passages about his father. I kept reading in hopes that he would revert to the deadpan humor and detailed observance that kept my interest in the beginning, but instead he tumbled further into a sort of Jack-Kerouac-meets-Yogi-Berra stream of consciousness that I couldn't follow.

By the end, I just didn't care. But I finished it. Even though I will never get those hours of reading back, I now feel, like Eggers, that I am owed.

I took this to tonight's Meetup at St. Elmo's. It almost was picked up by another BookCrosser, but ultimately she decided her pile of to-be-read books was big enough (I know that feeling). So instead of leaving it in the same place I found it, I've decided to take it with me to Westminster, Md., for Carroll Community College's 9th Annual Random House Book Fair. BookCrosser MaryZee will be manning a table to promote our BookCrossing, so hopefully someone will pick it up, journal it, and enjoy it more than I did.

Thanks, awiturtle, for the opportunity to read this!

RELEASE NOTES:

This will be at the BookCrossing table at Carroll County Community College, which is hosting the 9th Annual Random House Bookfair from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

To the finder of this book:

Hello, and congratulations! You have not only found yourself a good book, but a whole community of booklovers dedicated to sharing books with each other and the world at large. I hope you'll stick around a bit and get to know BookCrossing — maybe even make a journal entry on this book. You may choose to remain anonymous or to join (its free!). And if you do choose to join, I hope you'll consider using one of the previous journallers as your referring member.

Feel free to read and keep this book, pass it on to a friend, or even set it out "in the wild" for someone else to find like you did. If you do choose to join and journal, then you can watch the book as it travels — you'll be alerted by e-mail each time someone makes another journal entry. It's all confidential (you're known only by your screen name and no one is ever given your e-mail address), free, and spam-free.