Customer Reviews

Cinderblock

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Reading this novel is a little like wondering whether you really need that next cup of coffee . . . it would taste so good, but you're on the caffeine edge already. There's tremendous forward momentum in Cinderblock from page 1 that just doesn't let up. The story segues from character to character, intriguing setting to intriguing setting at a breathless pace to a climactic scene that amounts to experiencing altered states of reality in the safe, sane refuge of one's own reading place. The "tribes" are especially well-delineated in short pithy characterizations that hint at whole different ways of being. Not a relaxing book, but it sure was fun

Cinderblock is part convoluted drivel, part clueless, and all literary snobbishness. The author, in her fervor to show just how special and talented she is, has written a story that is so caught up in its own cleverness that it feels like she forgot that people would actually be spending their money on this book.

Unsympathetic and unlikable characters (who all go by multiple names and nicknames, almost making a scorecard needed to keep track of who's who) wander around in their uninteresting and idiotic little world that may or may not be a computer construct, real place, or delusions of a madman. From the beginning, I didn't care who lived or who died, because nothing about these people was compelling. In the end, I kept reading, just to see how much worse the story and the writing got.

It's actually a relief to see that there aren't many more offerings by this particular author. I also can't help but wonder what agents and editors were smoking when they decided to pick this book up? Maybe the author was paying them instead of the other way around.