Customer Reviews

Love Songs of the Tone-Deaf

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

 

 

This isn't a bad book, it's well written, and has a good story, but it's not the masterpiece that many other reviews make it out to be. This 'autobiography' details how a smart but cynical and unmotivated college grad realizes that he doesn't really know everything, and there's a lot more to learn and experience in life than he gives credit for. The tangents of superiority and never ending cleverness of the main character (the author) get old midway through the book and take away from the story. I think he was trying too hard and should have toned things down a bit, we would have still appreciated the character's viewpoint.

It's a quick read, and has it's moments, but don't expect any great revelations on what drives the 'x generation'.

That rare gem -- a book that's real. I rate this book five stars because it's a good story, seemingly seamless, well-written, and never once made me whine about "people don't talk like that." A big thing for me, suffering as I do from being born without the "suspend-belief" gene, which makes me throw down a book in disgust as soon as the dialogue rings untrue.

It's a lyrical story about learning: love, political protest, finding a meaning in life, etc., all the good stuff, told with a good measure of mildly sarcastic humor. A charmer. The book, not the protagonist, who is anything but. However, he grows on you and that's just the point. By the time he rides off into the sunset, you'll swear you're going to miss him.

I ordered the book merely for its great title, being tone-deaf myself but an avid lover of love songs, I couldn't resist. Still, angsty,sarcastic, mean-spirited guy voices usually wear thin when the beer runs out. But, much to my surprise, delight and utter amusement, Ronnie and his unlikely love for hippie Karen, swept me off my feet and into his wacked world.

Ronnie never really figures out how much he loves Karen until the end but manages to convince his readers we knew all along. Their love song is sweet and while you expect to feel contempt for clueless Karen, she ends up being a worthy heroine. An equal contender for heroine status is Ronnie's sister and the scenes between the two of them are both touching and authentic.

I'll recommend this book to a select few. Those who can't have a conversation without a silent running commentary going on in their minds at all times, and those hopeless romantics who believe that love can be lost and misplaced and kicked around, but can still be found again, usually right under your nose.

Enjoy hanging out with Ronnie and his friends. The worst part of the book is when they all drive off, without you.

guarantee it right now -- you'll crack up at this very funny book. i don't know about you but if a novel describes all the stupidity i see around me and in myself then i'm pretty impressed. especially if added on is some excellent mystery-type tension. it reminds me of a cross between catcher in the rye and the movie fight club. the main character ronnie is typical guy except he isn't, because if you watch closely he changes right before your very eyes. great book!

Brauner is amazing. This novel brings you into the main character's mind, and by the time you get to the end, you realize you kind of really liked it there! Strolling through his thoughts about his g/f Karen, sister Eva, and friends is like looking in a mirror at times, and that's what makes this novel so damn good. I bought it off amazon on a whim, from the title and the supposed great ratings it had, and I wasn't disappointed whatsoever. It makes you think like you haven't before, and if a novel can do that, then the possibilities are endless. Brauner hasn't written anything else available to my knowledge, but I look forward to more of his work. This novel is fantastic. Really an achievment.

I truly enjoyed this book, easily the most entertaining thing I've read in many months. It was also thought-provoking in a way that seemed almost beyond the years of the characters and/or author.

Mostly the story is about a young guy who is cynical about everything, and through the process of trying to keep up with his girlfriend, finds out reasons not to be cynical. There's also a lot of side stuff that was very interesting -- I'm still working it out in my head -- about identity, like who exactly is a Californian, do you have to be Native American, is it O.K. if you arrived last year, etc.

Of course, as other reviewers have pointed out, this is a guaranteed laugh-out-loud book, which makes any novel worth it, for me.

Hey, woah, fantastic doesn't even start to describe this great book. Every sentence is a mini-masterpiece -- really! Check out this book and you'll see that's no exaggeration. It's great writing, and it also made me grateful for a book with a plot! Most of the fiction I've read lately is this weak stuff where snippets and scenes and "vignettes", whatever they are, are supposed to be substitutes for an actual story. Thank you to Asher Brauner for a great story that is a lot of fun, and written in a terrific style.

After reading this book, I believe that Asher Brauner is an immensely talented young writer, but one who needs a bit of time to develop. I recognize that he's got a lot of five star reviews and perhaps they saw things I did not see, or were not bothered by things that bothered me. Brauner's strengths are his humor (he's totally hilarious, in the Dennis Miller vein) and his ability to depict the inner feelings of a young person in transition, someone who thinks they are on the outside looking in, realizing there really is no in or out. We follow Ronnie Shorenstein, a recent college grad, and his involvement with his hippie girlfriend's eco-friendly, activist crowd. Ronnie is reminds me of a lot of people in their early twenties, confused about what to do, and who they are. Ronnie is trying to figure it out, while remaining aloof, trying really hard not to care, because for some reason he thinks that's the way to be. The novel is really funny and Brauner every ten or so pages comes up with a dead-on, absolutely brilliant observation about life that will make you laugh out loud. Now the weaknesses. His dialog needs work. It was wooden and clunky at times. Character development is also weak. Ronnie's sister Eva swings into his life and plays a major role in the novel, but I never understood their relationship and what motivated her to do some things. The girlfriend. She sounds wonderful, but what was she doing with Ronnie in the first place. He was constantly mean to her in the beginning of the book. It just didn't make sense that they were together. I found Ronnie to be very annoying at times, so I did not want to stay up late reading this novel. The plotting was also a bit slow. In most comedic novels, there is some sort of tension that keeps your reading on--there's none of that here. That being said, I still give it 4 stars (3 1/2, but you can't do that here). The humor is wonderful, the witty observations delightful. I look forward to reading Brauner's later works and hope that he has a better editor this time.

Brauner wrote what would have been an amusing tale had it not been for the absence of a few key ingredients, such as a plot, well defined characters, and effective description. Rather than waste his time on these concerns, he appears to fixate on introducing one dimensional stereotypical figures for his main character to denigrate in an insufferable snider-than-thou manner.

The witticisms of Ron, the main character of sorts, are wrapped around his interactions with his several other characters (his girlfriend, his sister, some assorted friends) who might have potentially have been interesting, had the author bothered to develop them at all. These interactions occur over a period of several days in which absolutely nothing interesting happens, although any time the potential for any sort of plot occurs the author quickly steers the story in a different direction.

The "story" is supposedly set in Santa Cruz, although the descriptions are so limited that I would not recognize the setting if I had not previously been there myself.

The book was published by a small publishing house in Santa Cruz, rather than a mainstream one. In my opinion, this happened for a good reason.

I grew up in Santa Cruz - Kindergarten through college - but that only accounts for part of why I liked this book so much. I couldn't stop laughing and reading passages aloud to anyone who would listen. Funny dialog, great internal monologues, and dead-on characterizations of hippie dippy students. Actually, if you've spent any time on the UCSC campus, it'll read like non-fiction.