Customer Reviews

Flaming Iguanas: An Illustrated All-Girl Road Novel Thing

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Recently, on my own book tour, I happened to ask a sales guy at Shaman Drum Books in Ann Arbor if he could help me. I was an English grad student, I said; I was trying to draw up a syllabus for a course I hoped to teach in a year or two, on the American Road Novel. I'd come up with a handful of obvious titles--ON THE ROAD, ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTAINANCE, LOLITA, TRAVELS WITH CHARLIE, even THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ. But all of them were by white guys, and I was looking for the rest of the picture. Was there, I asked him, a literary equivalent to "Thelma and Louise"? He handed me FLAMING IGUANAS. "Here," he said.

A woman on a motorcycle takes on America.

This is a great book. Erika, I am in love. It is an infectuous, cheerful, honest, ragingly sexy--but never prurient--book. It is very much within the tradition (Kerouac, Henry Miller, and several other sex-and-road dudes are mentioned explicitly, as sort-of precursors; Erica Jong's FEAR OF FLYING is a good point of comparison, too), but it also extends the tradition, and gloriously so. At moments Lopez makes the confessional-thing look so effortless you're tempted to try it yourself, but such ruthless self-exposure, no matter how fictionalized, is its own stringent discipline.

This is a soaring, liberating read. Week 12 on the twelve-week American Road Novel syllabus, without a doubt. Some undergrads may be scandalized; WILL be scandalized. Too bad. Erika, I love you. I tell all my friends in the Princeton English Department about you. I am a one-man word-of-mouth machine, spreading the gospel. You are too much. Exuberance is beauty. Don't stop!

I was sitting, well actually squatting, in the bookstore and reading the first few pages of the book when I started laughing like a nut... Well people stared, so naturally I purchased it to avoid making a scene, and what a wise purchase it was. It's crazy, it's funny, it's so much more readable than "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". I felt empowered, I feel inspired, gosh darn I want a motorcycle gang too, and maybe someday I'll cross Canada and write a novel comparable to this.

Erika Lopez...The name didn't strike a bell at all when one of my friends' bought it up at a recent off-line book club discussion. Then I was intrigued to know more about this author and her works. So I went ahead and puchased "Flaming Iguanas" and before I knew I was in for a rocking roller-coaster ride across US of A.

This book is about Tomato Rodriguez - who takes a cross-country bike trip on her own in search of may be something or maybe something not. Funny in bits and I laughed so hard that it made me cry...and then again there is a very subtle profoundity at play in this work .

On her journey to the road of revelation, Tomato has given me so many insights which are unbelievably hard to relate to but they work nevertheless. A great book - both as a comfy read and at the same time sneaking on you and scandalizing in all so many ways!!

This book kicks butt.
It so funny in parts I laughed outloud. All I kept thinking was how true it all was, I mean if you decided tomorrow that you wanted to be tough and drive across the country on a motot bike, you would fall down a lot, you would be really scared when big giant trucks drove by in an attempt to splatter you on the road, and, you might even sing made up folk songs outloud in your helmet to try and keep yourself calm. Hil freekin larious, is what I think this book is. The writing is is a bit like having a conversation with someone super funny but slightly unstable. It is in your face graphic and offers no sugar coating of thoughts and feelings. There is no filter for the verbal rantings and that is what makes it great.
You will be entertained by this book. It was a very pleasent surprise. Plus the packageing is cool, you cannot go wrong. I want to go out and buy several copies and send them to all my girlfriends.

I'll tell you up front - I'm generally biased toward books about motorcycles, as an avid rider myself. But I have to say, _Flaming Iguanas_ is just outstanding. Some of it reads like free association straight from Lopez's brain, which I really got into, along with the wacky-but-usually-related-but-sometimes-not illustrations. The story is a winner, as our heroines trek around on their bikes, but it's the delving into Tomato's psyche that I enjoyed most. Well, that and the one-liners that made me laugh out loud.

Overall, just a phenomenal book, and I highly recommend it to anyone, even though people who don't know the exhilaration of riding on two wheels.

As I was browsing through my local bookstore one afternoon, this little book caught my eye. The cover art was tacky, and the title was a bit on the odd side, so it seemed like the perfect book for me. When I brought it home, I thumbed through it to find even more amusing prints on the pages within. The story is a not-so-typical story, yet at the same time, it could very well be true. I could not put it down. It takes the characters through different veiws and shows their emotional changes. I enjoy weird books, and this my friends, is on my list.

I first read this book about a year and a half ago and have been shamelessly forcing it on all friends/family/acquaintances/farm animals since then! Tomato was the first "novel heroine" that I've ever related to so well--reading the novel, I felt like I WAS her. I felt absolutely empowered by the book, and was ready to buy a motorcycle on a whim after reading it! Erika Lopez writes with such savvy; the mental imagery she creates is beyond fabulous! By all means, buy this book, read it, and then pass it on to everyone YOU know. Nobody should be without the experience of a Lopez "All Girl Road Novel Thing"!

This book is a different experience from the start. The paper is similar to grocery bags, the typeface wavers on the line, and almost every page is decorated with rubber stamp art, doodles, and calligraphy.

But there's an intriguing story here, too, not just a fancy presentation. Tomato Rodriguez sets off on a motorcycle she can barely ride, as a motorcycle gang of one (the Flaming Iguanas), to cross the country and reunite with her ailing father, who runs a sex toy shop with his girlfriend.

Lopez definitely stands many of the conventions of the male road novel on their heads. When I tried to guess how things would end up, I was rarely successful, and I like that in a book. Still, I thought there were places that she abandoned a character or a plot line just as it was starting to bear fruit. Lopez implies that the book is semi-autobiographical, and it's hard to know whether it's the "truer" parts are the places where the plot veers as awkwardly as Tomato steering on gravel.

The strength of this book is its characterization. There are no strong male characters in this book, but they are not uniformly disgusting or stereotypical, a fault some feminist authors fall into. The portrait of her therapy-overdosed, boundary-obssessed lesbian mom is wonderful ("I imagined all of us protected by invisible squares of masking tape on the floor that followed us wherever we walked like hoop skirts, and if anyone crossed over into our space we were allowed to shoot to kill, the way you can when burglars break into your house.")

Let me leave you with the quote that will, I believe, provide the ultimate litmus test as to whether this book is for you: "I wanted a Bisexual Female Ejaculating Quaker role model. And where was she, dammit? From now on I would demand to be represented."

Go on. Ride on the wild side.

How many of us have dreamed of tossing all that holds us back and hitting the road? Doing the unthinkable and living by our looks and guts alone? Lopez hits the mark in a funny and bitng commentary. I read and laughed out loud and sneered at those who looked at me sideways, striking out in my own way and paving a new road. Heck, even my grandmother liked this book! (she's always been a bit ahead of her time). From this bookstore clerk to you, if you're looking for a little fun and adventure this is an exhilirating read

Writing as her alter ego, Jolene "Tomato" Rodriguez, the always-entertaining Erika Lopez spins a tale that you will either adore or despise. It is difficult to feel ambivalent or indifferent towards her quirky story and over-the-top first-person narrator's scrambled but passionate outlook. Adjectives such as "spunky" spring inevitably to mind.

If you love motorcycles and/or good old-fashioned road trip stories, you will probably get a kick out of this book just for those factors, which form a dominant (if not overriding) theme here. And if you dig artistic, literary and (shall we say) "offbeat" bisexual women indulging in irresponsible, unaccountable fun you will probably enjoy it just for those (equally strong) elements.

I followed Tomato's journey with a mix of pity and delight; she is a Latina Bridget Jones on wheels.

You might be distracted or even put off by the strange fonts and even stranger clip art Lopez uses, which I found amusing and curious but ultimately unnecessary. Frankly, I would have loved this book just as much if it had been published in a conventional format -- I don't think the weird lettering and frequent graphic inclusions added anything to the plot. Many readers, I'm sure, will find it intrusive. As for me, I quit noticing it after a while, like the subtitles in a foreign film. It remains an interesting choice, however, and I suppose Lopez is trying to show us how Tomato's mind works.

FI is full of rough and dirty adventure, including enough conflict and sex to keep the casual reader interested even if the bigger issues slip by. I felt like this book could have been 25% longer. It seemed to run out of steam and stop rather abruptly. Then again, the fact that she left me wanting more seems to suggest that she wrote a fine and memorable novella. Lopez is at her best when she describes the sights and sounds (and smells) of her life on the road with a tone that is reminiscent of Charles Kuralt while still bubbling with colorful analogies and images in the style of Tom Robbins. Her brutally honest evaluation of motel-room sex with a virtual stranger is uncomfortably hilarious.