Customer Reviews

Eat When You Feel Sad

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

this book is good. after reading this book i feel less like committing suicide and more like preparing a meal with kale. this book actually inspired me to write a novel in the exact same style, which i then deleted, feeling satisfied.

this book has mad readability. i sat down and read it in one day. some parts i read during lectures when i got bored. i never felt bored when reading the scenes. strong pacing and movement. a true 'page-turner.'

this book has funny references, strong moments of dialogue, good music, powerful interactions, and a completely original, endearing, and pacifying style.

one of the more emotional books i've read lately.

This book gave me the sense that I could do more things that I like doing. This book did not make me want to change who I am. This book is important due to its philosophical weight and its position amongst contemporary independently published fiction. Critical success seems to be coming for this book. German's character, Robert, is a self-aware caricature of an organism set starkly against a world of penetrating and evasive emotional crisis. The story of Robert is told with a metaphysical exactness that exists on its own, strangely divided from the surface of its language. German's effort is swift and has the mark of an early genius struck by natural talent. I feel that his work to follow will have little chance of disappointing anyone. Should his process not be as unaffected as it seems for EWYFS, few people will notice it as fault, and, in fact, might increase his ranking as one of America's up-and-coming sensations.

At first, the way he writes is exciting because it's complicated and different. Then it just gets tiring. And then the plot never goes anywhere. And then you just want to finish it to be able to move on to something else.

In EWYFS, Zachary German 'executes' a style/philosophy which I feel others have wanted and tried to execute but either did not or could not maintain the consistency necessary to do so. The content, like the style, is also consistent. I enjoy what is included and what is excluded, description-wise and content-wise, and the relationship between the two. By leaving the the style and content only descriptive (minimally so) and without any explanation (except for what might be inferred), the book is all the more active, affecting, and disconnecting. Zachary German has like, 'a talent' or 'good eye' for the meaningless, honest, and sympathetic. The result is that EWYFS is unique and also, somehow, stunning. There were passages during which I could feel my heart vaguely in my chest and wet or something. EWYFS is also as stupid and boring as it should be, if that makes sense. Maybe a better description is that in EWYFS nothing means more than it should or more than any other thing. Everything being treated equally in this way creates a strong sense of loneliness, confusion, humor, and despair that distinguishes EWYFS from most books.

I enjoyed reading this book. I liked Robert, a stand in for German himself, and felt an almost tingling sympathy for him during some of the more dramatic scenes. I laughed out loud during some of the solo scenes. What German is doing feels concentrated, timely, and true. I look forward to reading more of his writing in the future, especially his poetry.

Reading this felt really good. I felt really good reading this. Charmingly irreverent yet always emotionally resonant, EAT WHEN YOU FEEL SAD displayed, to me, a degree of awareness about life that is unlike almost any book I can think of. A freewheeling display of mindfulness in regard to the life of a young man in a style that is almost hypnotic, creating, to me, a trance-like effect.

A refreshing and invigorating novel that I am sure to enjoy many more times.

I feel better about life just thinking about EAT WHEN YOU FEEL SAD, without reading it, but also while reading it. I read a description of it (after having read the book 2-4 times) in some review somewhere and immediately felt better about life, at a time that I was feeling depressed, for example. The book's focus, its lack of things like cancer, war, violence, or [other conventionally "important" "issue"] is exciting to me. The book's consistent prose-style, consistent tone, and consistent focus is very impressive to me. Seems like Zachary German was able to control himself from inserting anything that would "ruin," to some degree, the book, in my view, such as [probably 10-20 specific things that seem to have "ruined," for me, to some degree, 20-40 different books I've read some or all of].

I feel like the level of consistency and level of artistic self-control and steadiness of tone displayed in EAT WHEN YOU FEEL SAD is usually, in authors I like who have a prose-style that is not "conversational," that doesn't seem like it is a person "simply" talking unpremeditatedly, is not achieved until their ~3rd books. For example Lorrie Moore's 3rd book LIKE LIFE, Matthew Rohrer's 3rd book A GREEN LIGHT (poetry), and maybe Joy Williams' 5th book ESCAPES. There are exceptions to this, but none that I can think of currently that were Zachary German's age (21). I'm glad EAT WHEN YOU FEEL SAD exists. It honestly seems very different than anything else I've read, while also having "retained" the properties of many books that I like, such as, perhaps, for example, CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER by Ann Beattie.

like everyday, this book keeps coming until it stops. it is simple and self-sufficient. like tao said, one of its achievements, maybe its most major one for me, is that it goes on for 100+ pages without ruining itself. robert's story would be easy to ruin with stupid 'irony' on the one hand, or complete lack of emotional weight on the other. 'eat when you feel sad' strikes a really good balance between meaning it and not. also, i like this book because it is about things that are in my life like gmail, porn, veggie burgers, and halloween parties. the scenery is relatable. while i didn't quite have the ecstatic feelings that some reviewers here had upon finishing the book, for me reading it was just like listening to my favorite modern music. in fact the cadence and sentiment of the book reminds me a lot of songs by lcd soundsystem. i hope zachary german keeps writing. i really enjoyed this.