Customer Reviews

The State That I Am in

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

 

 

I'm not sure what the B&S Fan was talking about. I bought this book after listening to Scott's album (The World Outside by "Another Dreamer").

I found the novel genuine and interesting, keeping me coming back. I'm not sure I've ever read anything quite like it before. What strikes me most is Scott's sense of honestly at all costs. But more than that, the inspiring and interesting love story itself...two teenagers naively going up against all odds for true love.

Yes, there were parts that made me a little uncomfortable. There was a little more sex than I expected, a little America-bashing, and the main character comes across as arrogant at times...which, in my opinion, only makes the character more authentic (as unpalatable as it can be at times). But from reading his blog and listening to his music, it does strike me that the characters are at least part fiction...as the main character "Daniel" doesn't sound all that much like the author in real life.

Also, I really didn't notice any typos. In fact, often when the foreign characters speak, the imperfect sentences intentionally remind us that they aren't fluent in English. This might be what the B&S fan is referring to.

I'm giving this novel a 5 because it kept me turning pages, because the characters came alive for me, and finally, much like his music, because it is original and doesn't fit neatly into any genre.

Alright, I admit that I found this book solely because I am a huge Belle and Sebastian fan and thought I would check out a novel that had been 'inspired' by them. BIG MISTAKE.

I guess I should have been warned: the title of Neiss's pretentious dreck is a fictitious book that characters on occasion read (or even write) in B&S songs... this author wants to put himself in the songs? Yeah, well... no one would waste their precious few minutes of indie-song fame reading this.

The story is second-rate: boy falls for foreign girl, parents and continents threaten to drag them apart, boy and girl grow up, get married, and stay in love against all obstacles, and the writing is even worse. Every noun and verb is preceded by a facile adjective, making the book about 1/2 times longer than need be. Sloppy writing to the extreme. The most appalling factors, though, are the continuous misspellings, bad punctuation, and grammatical errors that permeate this book. Jr. High kids are more consistent than this. Maybe this was some 'hip' thing to do that I just didn't get, or maybe the editor died while trying to muddle his way through all the extraneous adjectives, but whatever the cause was, it still is painful to read.

By the way, B&S is only mentioned in a handful of places, in case you thought maybe you should just read it to get a good 'plug' for your favorite band.

Do not bother with "The State I am In". Go listen to "Tigermilk" and read Stuart David's "Nalda Said" instead.

I have never so badly wasted 4 hours of my life on a book.

I'm a Belle and Sebastian fan and heard about this book from my friend. B&S makes several references to a book called "the state that I am in", and so I just had to read it. Anyway, it is an interesting, fresh perspective from a talented young author. He so effortlessly covers so many themes...the struggle between responsibility and pleasure, the loss of innocence, and the struggle to find true love in today's high-tech world. I noticed how he looks at everyday things with a unique, multicultural perspective. It's been several weeks since I finished the book and I haven't been able to forget about Daniel and Izabela.