Customer Reviews

Girl Talk

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

GIRL TALK is one of those novel that starts out being about one woman -- one woman with a BIG problem that is only going to get bigger -- and ends up being about all women. About the world in which women live, the secrets they keep, the fights they choose and the ones they pass. Their mothers, their friends, their lovers and their ghosts. The ending will remind you that Baggott is a poet, as well as fiction writer. You will not be disappointed.

A wonderful addition to writers who came of age after the Vietnam War!

Although I didn't know what to expect from Girl Talk, it was not such a touching, honest portrayal of a relationship between a mother and daughter. Our heroine, now a single advertising executive living in Manhattan, looks back on a rather bizarre summer she spent with her mother, tracing events that took place then and thinking about the effects they have had on her present life. A complicated, somewhat strange woman, Lissy's mother used this summer to tell Lissy 'the truth' about herself and her life - and it these stories that form the basis of the novel, introducing characters, revealing their experiences, and so on. The result is a complicated, touching, honest, delightful depiction of life, love, happiness, relationships, deception and so on. It's a novel that's definitely about people rather than events, and Julianna Baggott is definitely an author to watch. I was very pleasantly surprised by this book, and enjoyed it so much that I hope others will check it out as well.

After my wife devoured the book, I picked it up and was instantly hooked! Baggott perfectly captures and describes an era of time that I instantly identified. The humor, which at times is both subtle and obvious, coupled with a diverse cast of characters, makes the reading of Girl Talk an excellent choice for all.

I bought this book b/c I thought it would be the perfect summer read and I was going to be traveling alot. Something to read on a long flight, perhaps. This book really did disappoint me. The characters were shallow and two dimensional, and the plot was hackneyed and quite frankly, boring. In fact, I almost gave up half way through. The most annoying thing about this book is that it was trying so hard to be "fun" and "deep" at the same time. Frankly, it doesn't succeed too well at either. A pretty pink cover and a gimmicky title do not a good book make. Baggott seems to know how to market herself, but that's about all.

"Girl Talk" is a hilarious and tender novel, the kind of book you buy for your mother, your sister, your best friend!

I loved this book. The author has such compassion and affection for these oddball characters you can't help but love them (although I do wish Anthony Pantuliano had been slightly less troll-like. I mean, a big penis can only compensate for so much...) The voice is strong and seamless, the writing is poetic, and the plot flows. What more could you ask for in a book?

This whirlwind ride of a novel is wise and wise-cracking, audacious and open-hearted. Julianna Baggott is hilarious, whip-smart, and she writes like a dream. Read this book!

Baggot's book begins with the adult narrator realizing she has relived the life of her mother, and the book proceeds to show us just why. Time and memory have a lovely slippery effect here, Lissy's 15th summer becomes her mother's 16th, which becomes her own present. What sets this book apart, though, is the wit and uniqueness of Baggott's voice and characters; she places us firmly in a world where life itself is absurd--not to mention the cast of characters that come with it.

I wanted to like this book very much since I had heard such positive things about it. I bought this book to read on a long plane ride, since it's been touted as the perfect summer read.

The book just didn't hold my attention. I found the characters to be mildly annoying and the plot predictable and cheesy. It reads as though she wrote it in a very short period of time and was trying to be "fun" and "deep" at the same time. Unfortunately it fails at both.

I don't really like to write bad reviews, but it does annoy me when something has so much hype attached to it and the product turns out to be disappointing.

If you insist on buying it, at least buy it used.

For a book that at first glance appears to be just another Bridget Jones takeoff (women's-interests title, confessional first-person tone, 20-something professional or semiprofessional female narrator who loves all the wrong men and suffers the consequences), Girl Talk has an impressively original plot. The story alternates between Lissy's present-day concerns - her approaching 30th birthday and unintentional pregnancy - and a recounting of her 15th summer, during which her father left with a younger woman and her mother taught her what she has come to view as the blueprint for her own life.

Surprisingly, it works. Both stories are compelling and entertaining, and the link between the two is plausible without being overbearing (the narrator avoids slipping into moralistic commentary on her past deeds). Moreover, the events of the stories are arranged to yield a pleasing resonance without seeming too contrived.

Still, this is a three-star book. Its undoing is the language it's written in - tense, wooden, trying too hard. Occasionally the author breaks through with something good, but most of the time she's trying too hard to make every phrase beautiful and meaningful, yielding only a series of empty platitudes. The book's descriptive passages are lacking in quantity as well as quality, leaving the external landscape fuzzy in favor of detailing the narrator's every thought. The final pages, which are obviously designed to leave the reader with a certain sensation, fall flat. I knew what the author wanted me to feel, but I didn't feel it. In the end, all of that original plot left me with very little in the way of original thoughts.

Still, this is not an unworthwhile book. It's cute. It certainly isn't bad. There's just so much out there that's very similar.