This is quite a depressing book, filled with miserable characters barely scraping by in their miserable lives in what seems to be a pretty miserable part of New Jersey, and it is absolutely beautiful and compelling despite all of these miserable and depressing things.

This book bears a certain distinction on my blog in that it is the only book reviewed twice--once in 2009, and once in 2019--and the story of why is interesting but I think is told in the second review (both are linked below--and nope, the second one is super-short, but the comments from the first one should fill in the blank). In short, the first time I read it, I was 26 and relatively close to the age of most of the characters; the second time, I was 35 and considerably older than them, and di...

i stumbled upon garden state by rick moody when looking on amazon for the movie. they're not related at all aside from the fact they both take place in jersey. my biggest complaint was that the book was not a 'big word' book, but it used big words incessantly. they weren't words that i felt the characters would use, or if they did, they wouldn't use them correctly. moody himself said that the book wasn't his best, and so did the reviewers, but i thought, hey, what the hell. well, eh. the book wa...

extra star for the familiarity of the geographic backdrop.

Garden State by Rick Moody is a novel about young adults growing up and living in the suburbs of Haledon, New Jersey during the 80’s. These friends struggle to find purpose for their lives as they deal with broken families, drug use and mental instability. The novel covers a few rough months out of their lives during the spring as they transition from one phase of their lives to the next. Alice is trying to keep her band together, Dennis and Max are continuously looking to score new drugs, Lane

I really wanted to read this because it's about growing up in NJ but. alas. apologies to the writer, but your male gaze is showing. i barely made it through the first hundred pages. the way the women in this book are written made me want to throw up.

Disaffected youth. That phrase pops into my mind when I think about Garden State. Reminds me of Douglas Coupland in its somewhat grim- (no- I guess gritty- more accurately describes it) portrayal of 20 - 30something youth of America. I'll also never think of NJ the same way again. Not that I had a high opinion of Jersey to begin with. I finished reading the book while we were in NY City. After which- I went across the street from our hotel to get something to eat at s little gourmet grocery stor...

From what I can gather from a 2008 email discussion about this book, I had watched and loved the movie The Ice Storm and wanted to read all of Rick Moody's books. Unfortunately, I was bored to tears and couldn't even skim my way through it. I considered giving it another try here, 13 years later, but neither my libraries nor Hoopla have any ebooks. I found a first edition hardcover with dustjacket for a total of $14 but when I look at the Goodreads reviews, I don't think I should risk it / waste...

A major disappointment. Don't understand the critical love for this novel.

To clear up any misconceptions this is not the book that the movie is based off of. When I read the back cover it sounded interesting as though the entire book was about bands and New Jersey. What I got when I read it was so depressing it killed my mood. None of the characters were likeable (expect maybe Lane) but none of them had any redeeming qualities. The author's preface (which I read after I finished the book) was more interesting than the book itself.

This wasn't very good, a tepid warm-up for the much better The Ice Storm.

Much of the emotion imbued in the text seems inextricably linked with New Jersey and, thus, inaccessible to a large part of the population. I had expected it would at least lend itself to thoughts of suburbia, but alas. Maybe those quite familiar with NJ would get more out of it, but for an outsider, it is just murky, place names empty of meaning. That aside, it is definitely a meandering text that I am not certain lands anywhere (nor presents a journey worth the meandering). Still, not a waste

Something poetic about this book spoke to me, I found it hard to get through though because it was really depressing. Might be a book of choice for those who love obscure reads.

Full disclosure, I'm a middle aged expat Californian and was reading Garden State in tandem with a novel by Virginia Woolf that was loosely based on a Shakespeare play that I was also reading. And yes I got the NJ poetics but the story line in Garden State seemed rather flat and alien to me at this point. Then I ditched everything I was in the middle of reading and went stateside, a trip that ended with a drive out to JFK in a taxi. At the airport I immediately penned this memoire of the experie...

(Deep intake of breath, a hesitation)Expect this review to be a rambling mess as my thoughts on the novel are more or less that.First - the embarrassing confession - I originally sought out this book because of the Zach Braff movie of the same title which (unlike some of the other reviewers here) I absolutely loved. If you want to read it for the same reason, don't. The two are unrelated.I found this to be a difficult book to read. When I would put it down (which is not a good sign in itself) fo...

It had it's shining moments here and there, but that couldn't quite carry the book for me. The paragraphs reflecting on dissatisfaction and youth and losing it were my favorite parts.

So...I'd been looking forward to read this since I liked The Ice Storm when I first read it years ago. Should've stopped there.Garden State is a depressing book with unlikable people. Normally, a depressing book with unlikable people isn't a deal-breaker; my enjoyment of Blood Meridian will attest to that. But the difference between Blood Meridian and a book like this is that it has to be COMPELLING. Garden State is not compelling at all.The characters live pointless lives and complain incessant...

“Garden State” by Rick Moody. Back Bay Book / Little, Brown and Company Hachette Book Group, New York, April 1997.A garden grown on aimlessness and depression. Rick Moody’s garden state is what I imagine Nirvana’s Never Mind album would have been if it were a novel. The novel follows a group of youths that live in New Jersey, with live acting as a kind of location rather than a state of being. There is Alice, the main character of the story, who was hoping to make it in a band, but once Critical...

I remember absolutely nothing about this book but the fact it took place in some suburban hellhole in New Jersey and one of the main characters (or all of them?) were in a band. Poor Moody. Like all modern writers, his books are great to read, but they don't live and they're like sand in my brain.

Great dialogue, strong writing. The fragmentation is appealing, I like what it does, but I struggled with empathy, probably more a reflection of me as a reader than anything else.3.5/5