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An absolutely incredible book. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think. I read a lot of books, but I rarely respond to them like I did to this. Upon finishing it, I immediately called several of my friends and told them to go get it RIGHT NOW, because it felt like Tropper was writing exactly what we had been through. Tropper writes as though he is in the minds of his readers: you can feel the love, hatred, hurt, joy, confusion. The story might not always be fantastic, but his ability
I wanted to like this book. I had every reason to -- not only was it the only book I had with me on vacation, but it had been recommended by someone whose opinions I trust and the author had been compared to Michael Chabon and Richard Russo, writers I love. But no matter how much I tried, I could not ignore the absolute awfulness of the writing. Tropper piles on adjectives randomly, giving ridiculously elaborate and yet banal descriptions of mundane things like drinking a soda ("long, thirsty si...
I really enjoyed This Is Where I Leave You despite its at times-overbearing resemblance to a feelgood independent script aiming to be Oscarbait, so I decided to check out Jonathan Tropper's back catalogue.The Book of Joe is very similar - awash in cinematic cliches such as the estranged son returning home due to illness in the family, reacquainting with an old girlfriend he never got over, etc etc. It actually pulled together in TIWILY, but not here.I think what annoyed me the most was the use o...
So the story is this:Smartass non-athlete kid grows up in a shitty sports town, moves away at 18 and writes a book savaging everyone he grew up with. After 15 years, the now-successful writer has to return to town because his father (who he hated) is sick.There's potential there. Despite being a blatant rip-off of Elizabethtown (maybe not the best thing to swipe from, BTW), this could work if one could avoid all the typical 'prodigal son' cliches. Such as:Former jock turns out to be gay.Former a...
"God," I say. "Remember high school?"“Full of promise, full of dreams, full of shit. Mostly just full of yourself. So full you’re bursting. And then you get out into the world, and people empty you out, little by little, like air from a balloon.” Jonathon Tropper is my age. I know this because I looked it up somewhere in the midst of listening to this book. I had to look it up and yet I think I knew the answer long before I saw it. How else could it be? How else could he get everything so right?...
Any schmuck can be unhappy when things aren't going well, but it takes a truly unique variety of schmuck, a real innovator in the schmuck field, to be unhappy when things are going as great as they are for me. At thirty-four, I'm rich, successful, have sex on a fairly regular basis, and live in a three-bedroom luxury apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. This should be ample reason to feel that I have the world by its proverbial short hairs, yet I've recently developed the sneaking suspicion...
This is Where I Leave You is wonderful and if you liked it enough - you will probably read this book (also by Jonathan Tropper), but you probably won't like it as much. I wish it would have stuck with it's original title - Bush Falls. I like that a lot more, as it is the book which the main character writes that makes everybody hate him. I did like this book but only because it was sort of like This Is Where I Leave You. The characters were good but did not have the dimensions I was looking for....
A psychiatrist friend once told me that the psyche knows no greater pain than shame, that shame is so painful that, within a nanosecond, it is experienced as anger. The word "angry" clearly falls short of capturing the intensity of feelings about Jonathan Tropper's Joe Goffman, who had the chutzpah to make the name of his hometown the title of a novel -- one that would become a best-selling book and then a movie. The fact that Joe's work is fiction does not diminish the embarrassment felt by the...
Jonathan Tropper's The Book of Joe reminds me a lot of Michael Chabon's early work stirred up with a bit of Nick Hornby. Echoing so much of two of my favorite contemporary male authors, it's no surprise that, by the end, I really fell in love with this book and can't wait to read more from the author who wrote it.Joe Goffman is a lapsed Jew from a small town in Connecticut. After leaving home as a bitter and estranged teenager, he wrote a scathing (and bestselling) novel about his experiences gr...
Joe Goffman is a self-described asshole. He’s such an asshole that he wrote a scathing “fictitious” novel about his hometown where he completed lambasted nearly everything and everyone contained there. He never dreamed the book would become not only a national sensation, but also an A-List movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kirsten Dunst. He REALLY never dreamed he’d have to go back to said hometown and face the subjects of his novel. However, when his father suffers a stroke, that’s exactly w...
Granted, I only read about forty pages of this one before deciding it wasn't my thing. But I was struck by how right Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult were when they said that men's fiction that has the plot tropes of "chick lit" is always just called "literary fiction," and I would hold this book up first as an argument for that. There are points in the first 40 pages when, in my opinion, it approaches saccharine. Despite being a person who cries practically on command at every viewing of Waters...
Loved it!When I want a book with heart that I can count on being hilarious--an author I turn to is "Jonathan Tropper".After having read the most awful book of my life recently ---(a book which actually made me angry on so many levels--a book which calls itself "NOTHING"), --- I wanted a moving, funny, compulsively readable book ----"The Book of Joe" was the perfect fit ----ending 2012 ---starting 2013!
Mr. Tropper has delivered a delightful, beautiful and inspirational commentary on human nature. Getting out of our heads, being of service and present for our fellows is the real joy in life - making amends and ridding our minds of regret is priceless - Self-awareness and sincerity are key.'The Book of Joe' has it all - inspirational, touching, humorous and so easy to identify with on multiple levels.Scott Brick is wonderful and always an absolute treat to have as narrator... #Superman.
BEWARE: This book was originally published under the title of Bush Falls.He's a prodigy of alienation. Now a successful writer, having written a book about his home town, Bush Falls, that savaged the place, Joe receives a call from his sister-in-law that his father has had a stroke (he was at the top of the key, had just released the ball, and came down unconscious. Basketball aficionados present noted the ball swished.) Joe's brother, Brad, ex-sports star, and their father never had much time f...
This is my third JT novel and like the others, it drew me in from the beginning and kept me interested until the end. The story Is entertaining, packed with emotion, interesting characters and wit. I truly enjoy Jonathan Tropper's writing style and highly recommend this sentimental page-turner.
First off, this was a difficult book to rate. On the plus side, it made me laugh; it made me cry. I was caught up in the character's lives and cared about them. The author has a winning and simple way with prose. The negatives are what made me downrate it so much. Aside from the main character's intense self-pity that we're hammered over the head with, I had trouble suspending my disbelief for his best friend, Wayne, who deserved a much fresher and more thoughtful approach. Wayne is one of two g...
So, I really, really enjoyed this book. It's about a man who, upon realizing he is inhabiting an empty, souless life and hearing about his estranged father's life-threatening stroke, returns to his small hometown in Connecticut. There are some really predictable things that happen from here, but the study of human relationships, the resiliency of the human heart, and final note of home on which the novel ends really did it for me. There was big emotion packed into this book, and it dealt with so...
A little late with this review. It's been a couple of days since finishing it.I really loved the first novel I read by this guy, This is Where I Leave You, which was a great dysfunctional family tale.The Book Of Joe is also a family tale, but with an even better premise: Joe is a hugely successful author, whose one novel was a massive bestseller and became a movie.The book was largely based on his childhood home town and the characters identical to those he grew up with. With some very slight em...
Sometimes it's not that you can't go home again, it's that you shouldn't. Take Joe Goffman, for example. He left his hometown of Bush Falls shortly after high school and then years later wrote a fictionalized account of life there which left his former friends and neighbors feeling a little, well, angry. The book became a bestseller and was adapted into a movie, so the whole world got to see what Joe had to say.Joe returns to Bush Falls 15 years later, after his father has a stroke. Needless to
When his father suffers a stroke, Joe Guffman returns to the hometown he left behind 17 years before to confront his past and ponder his future. The biggest complication--Joe wrote a fictional book based on his life growing up in the town that didn't exactly sit well with some of those who depicted in his novel.Upon his return, Joe is involved in a bar fight, has a drink thrown in his face and finds copies of his book thrown onto the front lawn. But Joe is having other issues--his second book is...