Customer Reviews

Use Me: Fiction

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Anyone who read and loved Girls' Guide by Melissa Banks absolutely must read this book today! Schappell takes the short stories, recurring characters format and perfects it, making our interaction with her main characters personal and enduring. You will not be able to wait to find out what happens with her father and princess best friend Mary Beth. The best book out in 2000 so far!

Use Me is not a book about death, but, on the contrary, a book about the very essence of life. Schappell dares the reader to look at what really happens in relationships between men and women, between friends, in the very fabric of family life itself. Use Me, despite appearances,is a feminist book of the first order. It does not offer characters for women to blindly model themselves after, but instead, challenges women to question how power is asserted with men, family members, and within friendships. Use Me pushes, provokes, and jostles the reader into a relationship with the book -- one filled with emotion, joy and horror -- at the end of the book, it is hard to let that "relationship" go.

Schappell's series of short stories link together to tell a whole story of love and loss, of rebellion and communion. Schappell is hip. Reading her is like talking to the New York teenage sex queen she writes about, (the Mary Beth "best friend" character) who is more experienced and knowing than you are - and ultimately less emotionally engaged with her own experiences. In contrast is the main character Evie who is so overwhelmed with her own feelings she draws us into every experience the short stories describe: making out with a French boy on vacation while her nearby parents taste wine; her crush of feeling as her father eventually loses his roller coaster ride with cancer; her sickness at learning of her best friend has shared a moment with her father that she never could; her aloof awareness of her own husband's straying. The stories start the two characters in their early teens and keep moving until until they are young, married parents. This is a feeling book and it read like a series of moments the author had lived again and again and again: imagery, the sort that is seared into the psyche at an important life's moment conveys the feeling present here efficiently. With more filler this book might have been a novel but I am glad for it's economy - the format is perfect for the exploration of everything that's intense about Evie's experience becoming and being an adult. I don't really agree with criticism of her obsession with her father, or her treatment of her children. In this book Evie comes to terms with the fragility of life and all the ties that bind are affected by this knowledge. Is Evie's life, as told here, relevant to human experience? Certainly.

This is a collection of stories about love and loss. This is not your typical woe-is-me-single-woman book; it is a lot more intelligent than that. This book takes you on a journey where you learn about the loss of a parent and the reality of relationships between men and women. My favorite story is "Novice Bitch," very funny and original.

This book sort of reminds of The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, except that this one's a lot better. If you're in the mood for a sentimental read, I highly recommend "Use Me."

The chapters of short stories in this book reminded me of "A Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing". Initially I enjoyed this book but quickly grew tired of the main character's (Evie) antics. I had a hard time believing the little girl in the beginning was the same person as the woman in the end. (The relationship with her father seemed to develope overnight.) Also, all of the chapters are narrated by Evie, except for one which is narrated by her best friend Mary Beth. I enjoyed Mary Beth's chapter but found it awkward in part because it did not flow well with the rest of the book. I am sure Mary Beth had a significant influence on Evie's life, but Mary Beth disappears halfway through the story. Also at the end of the book I had grown tired of Evie's additude and her self distructive personality. At that point I did not identify with her character and had a hard time believing in her. It would have been better if I felt she had the power and desire to turn her life around. I had no sympathy for Evie because she knew her life was not where she wanted it to be, and yet she did nothing to turn it around. That being said, I enjoyed the writer's words and her humor.

I really wanted to like this book, but it was a driveling waste of time. It was easy (not taxing) to read, and I was pulled from chapter/story to chapter, hoping the potential might be realized in the next scene, but it never was. It reeked of self indulgent posturing, of 'aren't I cool because I shocked you' raciness, with no resonating value, which is a shame. I disagree with readers who thought the characters or relationships were the least bit realistic. Certain individual moments were telling, but were always preceded and followed by inconsistencies and shallowness. At no point did I care about the well-being of either main character.

Structurally, the narrative voice jumping from Evie to Mary Beth was confusing, often unclear for some time who was supposed to be speaking, and the two voices were not clearly distinctive. It even seemed poorly edited sometimes, like Schappel's own details weren't consistent.

On the other hand, if you have low expectations, and like reading lots of sexual innuendo for innuendo's sake, you might find this a fun romp, the way many enjoyed Judy Blume's Summer Sisters.

A few of the short stories in this book do stand up as decent reads on their own (see the "Outline" chapter in which the narrator deals with her father's cancer like a term paper).

But for the most part, the more I read this book-and I did finish-the more disturbed it made me. The narrator, Evie, IS self-obsessed and an Electra like other reviewers have suggested. But more importantly, she's completely unrealistic and kind of a sicko. I've been there with a parent dying of cancer...so I can relate to the pain...but Evie goes off the deep end, and uses her father's death as an excuse not to act like a normal person. His death is about her...not about him or other members of her family. Her hijinks -Evie flees to a nunnery, sucks her own breast milk, and eats her father's ashes-read like second-rate V.C. Andrews crap. I feel like Schappell kept trying to see what freaky thing Evie could do next to shock people. And frankly, by the end, I could've cared less.

After I finished reading the book, I just had to sit for awhile and take it in. She's such a fabulous writer that the characters seem like real people - this is such a cliche phrase, but in this case, I kept on thinking, wow, I know these people, or I've seen them before and wondered about them. While their actions are not always of the "highest moral caliber", I don't think the point of the book was to use them as moral compasses, but rather to see how learning - and bad decisions - are a part of life

This book explores the various stages of a girls life. She is trying to deal with growing up all the while coping with her fathers battle with cancer. Every daddy's girl should read this, it gives you a new prespective on life. She starts out in high school, and then goes to college. She copes with giving up her best friend for a husband and eventually a baby. Deals with heavy issues, abortion, cancer. Emotionally draining, but worth it.

I found the short stories within this book to be very interesting and well written. The stories were borderline disturbing, but not too far off that they were hard to understand. The 2 girls/women led very intriguing lives & sometimes you feel like a vouyer reading their stories. One thing I did not like was the fact that the book turned out to be only about one of the girls leaving you looking for more information on the other girl. I don't understand what the purpose of writing only 2 stories on one character were & the remainder on the other. Definitely an interesting book that reads well.