Customer Reviews

Burning Girl: A Novel

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

In a word: intriguing. This novel captures the reader from the beginning and slowly lets you down. I feel as though he gave up on writing at the end. And the ending--WHAT?? All together though, it was sexy, fun, and a little eery.

In equal parts I love and hate this book. I can't quite tell how serious the author is. Some parts, I swear, are so purple and breathless, but other, blacker, sadder parts caught me off guard, made me cry. The three main characters are shallow, Dawson Leery-like "kids" who don't talk at all like kids, but then again Peanuts never talked like real kids either.The murder mystery at the center reveals a strong, harsh, judgemental moral code. The settings are as gorgeously described as anything in Myst. I really tried to guess whodunnit and I failed.The sex scenes, boy-boy and boy-girl, were sort of overdone, yet I still was aroused. The violence in some scenes made me queasy and in other parts sort of made me laugh. I wished there had been more sex scenes with Jewel music because I really get crazy when I hear "Who Will Save Your Soul" while I'm in bed with my boyfriend.

Neihart has spun an interesting tale where the telling takes precedence over the story. Initially, the somewhat loathsome characters are mildly intriguing. Soon we are bored with them just in time for the story to blow up into a mystery of sorts. Unfortunately, it unfolds in a long, confusing sequence that ultimately does not pay off. The book seemed more like a personal experiment in writing. Recommended for writing students only.

Burning Girl is for today's twentysomethings what Less Than Zero was for the 80s twentysomethings. Ben Neihart captures the language and sensibility of the late-90s hip, cool, rich, young crowd with such sensitivity that there can be no question who he is dealing with--his characters aren't just a generic group of college kids, and his story not one that could have taken place in any other age. His characters are individuals, but individuals who reflect their times--they are a specific group of today's youth, and Neihart has his finger on the pulse. Like any good writer who chronicles his times, he is not interested in what makes his characters universal, but in what makes them different than anyone who has come before them. They talk differently, they live differently, and they take things for granted that others wouldn't even have considered. The story invites you into a particular time and place with a group of attractive, sexy, amoral kids who will fascinate and seduce you, or leave you completely puzzled as to their charm if you can't accept and move past their nonchalance and shallow exterior.

The first part of the novel introduces the main characters in a familiar scenario: Drew, working-class student, is befriended and introduced to the world of wealth and privilege. We are as attracted as he is to Bahar and her brother Jake. By the time Drew starts to uncover a bizarre and brutal secret from Bahar and Jake's past we too experience the conflicting feelings of loyalty and repudiation Drew undergoes. The story is a surprisingly moral one which recognizes and reconciles with subtlety the true complexity of fascination and love.

A somewhat bizarre cross between House of Yes, Secret History and Less Than Zero, Burning Girl is a quick, enjoyable read which will leave you thrilled by Neihart's incredibly real prose--his turns of phrase and language is just off enough to be foreign and attractive and hip, yet familiar enough to remind you that everything matters, the shallow and the moral.

"Burning Girl" by Neihart is a wonderful story about a boy who gets caught in a vicious scandal, but he must go further in to get out. Neihart explores sexuality, deceit and the power of love. The characters in the book seem so real and I feel like I know them. Neihart did a wonderful job, and for this he will be put on the map.

The characterization and dialogue surpass "Hey, Joe", but the last third of the book bogs down, becoming needlessly repetitious and circuitous. Nevertheless, I find Neihart's prose to be irresistible, and I devoured the book in one reading. I'm not certain exactly what it is about his writing that I find so compelling, but if this book stays with me as long as "Hey, Joe", I'll be thinking about it for many months to come. A worthy second novel by an extremely gifted author.

This has to be one of the most pretentious novels by a brat pack type author that I've ever had the misfortune of reading. The characters are meant to be shallow, but nothing in the prose or plot is any better. Very slow and empty and unsatisfying. Avoid at all costs.

Ben, feels like a person who isn't writting a book, it's as if you are merely let into the lives of the characters in the most interesting of moments during their lives. And all you can do is hold on once you realize there's no way the story can stop itself from falling...you are going to be fascinated by this one.

I read Burning Girl in one night. Couldn't put it down. It's a thriller written by someone who's in touch with the hip, smart youth of today. The characters are all completely original, but totally realistic. From the start, I was intrigued, felt like I was spying on a group of cool, fashionable, reckless kids. The ending was full of surprises, each more intense than the previous. Read it.

I could not get into this book. And I tried, really tried. The plot was too convoluted and the dialogue was completely unreadable. The worst part was I didn't care about the characters, so after about 70 pages it wasn't worth it to me to keep reading. Not for me.