Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Unorignal & Boring, May 18, 2001
In attempting to tell the story of Chrissie Swanson -- a young woman who as a highschool senior has little hope for a glorious future -- Michael Hornburg fails.He wishes to present Chrissie as a potentially clever yet deeply cynical person. Unfortunately, most of her narration is nothing but a ridiculous collection of mixed metaphors and shallow, failed attempts at insight. A character without depth does not usually work well as the central figure in a novel. And it would be the job of an author with far more skill than Hornburg to write such a novel. As for plot, this novel is dreadfully unoriginal and the story contains so many warmed-over plot elements and tired episodes that unwarranted attention is drawn to the author's lack of skill. It is one thing to present a situation which we've seen before -- in fiction or in our own life -- but to do so without giving a fresh perspective or meaningful context? Why should an author bother? Hornburg's failure extends so far as to miss important elements regarding the locale of his novel. Now, I'm all for poetic license...but when several other weaknesses in a novel are accompanied by a slip-shod handling of the details which are supposed to provide realism, my estimation of an author is not going to improve. Certainly, as a resident of the Chicago area who is familiar with the setting of this novel, I may know some things that the general reader does not. So, I'm not going to make a big deal about this. But even without regard to that, any reader who wants an intelligent, well-written novel to read should not bother with this.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not a bad read but...., April 14, 2002
Like some of the other reviewers,I grew up in DG for 20 years(in fact,parents still live there) and picked up the book partly out of curiousity to see how my hometown was portrayed. The plot and characters are a bit undeveloped thus you don't feel any true connection building between yourself and the book. The pop culture references ala Prince imply that this was supposed to take place in the 80s(the decade I went to Downers Grove South High)but then throws in the "Kurt & Courtney"movie,an obvious 90s reference. I really felt like the book was a poor man's "Catcher in the Rye" than anything else. Maybe I'm just getting old but the teens were just amazingly whiny.
The thing that bugged me were the glaring mistakes about not only the town Downers and its teens but Chicago,in general. When writers research their material,they usually go into a comprehensive sojourn for accuracy. This is where Hornburg slips. Everyone in both the city and suburbs know that North Ave runs east-west,not north-south. Wicker Park is mispelled "Whicker". Bolingbrook is mispelled "Bowling Brook". While Downers Grove has about 3 movie theatres(the Tivoli being the oldest while the others are newer and are in strip malls)none of them would've ever shown anything as edgy as "Kurt and Courtney' .That's what the Music Box,Piper's Alley and Facets Multimedia in the city's for. And why did Hornburg feel the need to make Lemont Rd and Main St two separate roads? THEY'RE THE SAME STREET! As big as Downers Grove is,Hornburg chose to focus on most of the events between the train station,63rd and 75th streets. This would be fine if he sometimes didn't make Downers sound like a tiny one stoplight town. My biggest beef was,hands down, the portrayal of Downers Grove youth. Contrary to Hornburg's vision,we weren't all stoners,slackers and disaffected. Sure,we hung out,drove all around town keeping the local cops on their toes but since 1986 almost every DG teen,at one time or another,makes the White Castle on 75th and Lemont part of their weekend hangout ritual. And absolutely NO teen from Downers Grove or the neighboring town Westmont has never not spent a late night at Omega Restaurant(With the very proud almost cocky slogan"Often copied,never duplicated"practically branded on its huge sign) Really,it's these personal touches that would've made the book a slightly better read and a more vivd blast from the past for its residents,now and then. It's a pretty quick read(I knocked it out in 3 hours)and,all in all,is light fare for what it is. Do yourself a favor and wait for the paperback,better yet,save your dough and check it out from the library.
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
This book is not worth your time, December 31, 2001
Fie on suburbanites! Woe and misery to all who live on or near a cul-de-sac! Rot for all eternity in backwater, white-trash hellpits like Downers Grove!Chrissie and her friend Tracy are stuck in stereotypical Midwestern suburbia surrounded by all that is ripe for contempt. School's almost out and both girls are hoping to graduate. And after all the wild parties, car chases, and casual sex, the two girls learn...nothing. They don't change at all. There is no realization, no bright epiphany to drive the story. There's just a long string of idle conversation and a whole lot of comparisons. "The astronaut was as far away from Dad as Jell-O is to mashed potatoes." "...she shined like a quarter found under a couch cushion." "The problem with jocks is they're as interchangeable as a lightbulb." Craving more? You've found your dream book. Mr Hornburg should have chosen a fictional town about which to write, as this book bears no resemblance to the actual Downers Grove of the 1990's. The author clearly spent little time researching the Chicago suburbs, and in deciding to write about an actual place, Hornburg should have gotten the facts straight. The Far West suburbs are no longer a string of farm towns littering Chicago's backyard. My familiarity with the area is greater than the average reader's, but that doesn't excuse the liberties that were taken. Major geographical mistakes are made throughout the book, and the increase of misspellings and grammatical errors in the final chapters leads me to believe that even the proofreaders couldn't stomach any more of this attempt at teenage coming-of-angst. Chrissie and Tracy are supposed to be exaggerated versions of teenaged girls, but their language and actions go way over the top into sheer unbelievablilty. Other reviewers have praised Hornburg for his keen ability to get inside a teenaged girl's head, but I disagree. I attended and later taught high school in Dupage County (where Downers Grove is located) and the level of mayhem and irrationality shown in the characters of Chrissie and Tracy doesn't fit the geography. As a former teenaged girl, Hornburg didn't successfully get into my head or the heads of any of the other teenaged girls I knew. The other characters (Chrissie's drugged-up brother, David, her desperately clueless mother, and her love interest, Bobby the trailer-trash mechanic)are equally overblown and uninteresting. With no character development, the story drags aimlessly and painfully on to an anti-climactic ending. To sum it up, this is a lousy book. If you like characters with no redeeming qualities, appreciate a thin plot that goes nowhere, and revel in an overabundance of pointless and often nonsensical similes and metaphors, then you'll enjoy Hornburg's Downers Grove.
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