Well written, but juvenile, and lacks affect.

I feel compelled to leave a review after reading some of these others - I believe the problem is the other readers may have given up too quickly on the novel. The story is brilliant, and has you go further through these "acts" - the story begins to unfold, leaving you with your own doubts and forcing you to piece together the true narrative. Pure genius - the story begins with this circling around a teen in an arts group, however it's the way the novel is written that is truly captivating. It holds this dramatic arts tone the entire time - and feels like you are listening to the story through the words of a theater teacher - over the top at times, but cannibalizing.

I wanted to like this book so bad, but the narrative didn't cohere for me, and the ending left me meh.

How did this book win the national book award? I got halfway through and finally gave up. The characters aren’t very interesting end it all seem kind of boring. Yes I know adolescence is a difficult time but let’s not dwell on it and we certainly don’t need to continue it into adulthood.

Incredible experimental fiction, as sharp as the crack of a whip. A knockout.

Horrible book. i read this book to fulfill the goal read a book that read in award in 2019. It was awful. absolutely awful. I repeat this is probably one of the worst books i have ever read. Obviously since it did win an award there will be people who disagree with me, but this is my opinion.

Barack Obama recommendation

This is not a comfortable read. It's salacious. For me, I struggled with nostalgia throughout. The author pinpoints the exact feelings and experiences of high school theatre (down to the RE). It's a challenging read; you will have to put pieces together. It's worth reading if you're still interested after reading reviews.

I actually really disliked this book, I was excited to read it because I saw it on a lot of year end lists, but was put off by the vulgar language especially to describe the actions of teenagers. I am by no means a prude, but just thought it was a bit inappropriate and it put me off to the point where I didn't even want to finish the book.

With the lavish reviews, the National Book Award and the hints at twists and suprises, I REALLY wanted to like this book...but I couldn't get past the first 20 pages. I didn't like the characters, there was no plot to speak of, and, most of all, the writing style struck me as overblown and pretentious - laudable in a 1-page poem, but exhausting in a novel. It's only got 3 stars on Amazon, and a lot of the reviewers there said it was definitely a "love it or hate it" book. After i hit 60 years old, I embraced Nancy Pearl's principle of not spending time on a book that doesn't grab me within the first chapter or so. Too many books, too little time!