Shut Up & Read discussion

Discuss as you read, but please use SPOILERS for those of us who haven't gotten as far as you!!! (Check out the 'some html is ok' box above the post box for spoiler tags.)

Happy reading!

Wish I had time to read this one now.

I read this one last month after it didn't make July book of the month. I really enjoyed it. I thought the writing was wonderful and with such an innocent but melancholic perspective. I'd like to read more of Neil Gaiman's books.

I am reading it right now. It's short, btu so far I love it. I'm just under 30% of the way in, where he is (view spoiler)[ pulling the worm out of his foot. (hide spoiler)]

I feel so bad for this kid, at least in the way his parents are described.

I like Gaiman's ability to make readers feel sympathy without demonizing the parents. It seems to me that in a lot of books parents are are A) stupid, B) horrible (alcoholic, abusive, etc), or C) not a problem/not present.

Here you can feel the parent's negligence, but you can also see that they have no concept of it. Furthermore, they are "horrible" parents - they buy him comics and throw him a party and help him compromise with his sister - but they have no real concept of what he needs.

Reading on, I have changed my mind. His dad is rather horrible.

I love the repeated implications that humans are incredibly simple and easy creatures to rule and corrupt. Beautiful.

Check out the BotM contest for August!
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

Jennifer wrote: "I read this one last month after it didn't make July book of the month. I really enjoyed it. I thought the writing was wonderful and with such an innocent but melancholic perspective. I'd like to r..."

He's a great author. One of my favorites of his is Stardust. It's such an original story and so funny.

I ADORE Stardust.
I liked this one a lot, but I am not sure about the ending. The wistful unfinished feeling is in keeping with the story - reading felt performative like a Greek tragedy, which was cool. On the other hand ... I wanted a sense of completion. So less cool.
Still, I really liked it.
Anyone else?

I just finished. The writing was really good, I do feel kind of lost. But so does the main character so... since he's the one telling the story I think it kind of works. But I wish I knew more. I hate finishing a story and still being so in the dark about what really happened.

I have this in my to read stack and will start on it next.