Three star review, originally posted here on April 24, 2018.
I am… confused. Why is this book so insanely popular? I mean… it was fine. Chabon can craft some damn fine sentences. The basic premise of following comic book creators was interesting. Every now and then something legitimately interesting happened that sucked me in for a chapter or two at a time.
But somehow this book, overall, still fell flat for me. I had trouble picking out what our central conflict was supposed to be, or what it is that we were supposed to care about. I never got a truly good sense of what any of the characters (with the exceptions of Sammy and him mother) are actually like. At times we went into big rambling passages that seemed to go nowhere and add nothing. In the end I’m not sure what we learned or resolved. And the book’s title only adds to the confusion. “The Amazing Adventures of 2 Guys.” Except 1 guy never actually went on any adventures. The second one went on crazy fantastical adventures that were illogically crammed in amongst mundane chapters of nothingness.
So I dunno… this one was just super uneven, and I wish the entire book kept up with the parts that really shined. Neutral rating.
Helga without the H 