I adore this book tremendously. Barry is such a genius for writing about child/teenhood, in particular, and she has simultaneously a huge amount of tenderness for her characters and a clear-eyed refusal to pull punches. This is an incredibly dark, funny, overwhelming novel. ( )

A really harsh yet compelling story, similar in theme to "The Death of Bees, " but very different in style. ( )

This is one of the most disturbing and grotesque books I've ever read, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I would have gotten more out of it if only I had at some point done a lot of psychotropic drugs. I can't say I enjoyed this book, but I was kind of amazed by it. I think the story and the characters are on a level of screwed up I am nowhere close to - and by the end of the novel I was really very grateful for that. This is a reading experience of shock and awe, maybe, then. I honestly can't say how much of Cruddy was a little over the top, and how much was just something I've never experienced and so seemed to me a little unrealistic. I didn't relate to the characters at all, nor did I like them, and I had trouble even feeling sympathy for them most of the time. Sometimes a really interesting or original thought from one of them would shine through, but it never really redeemed the book for me.

All that being said, I think this is an excellent book, just maybe not for me. It's amazingly gutsy and I've never read anything more emotionally raw and brutal. Cruddy is certainly more worthwhile and original than many of the more critically acclaimed, self-important, "dark" contemporary works.

I loved that the main character wasn't ugly-but-not-really-ugly, or sexy-ugly, or ugly-until-the-makeover or whatever; no, she was described several times as being really, really truly messed up looking. A couple of times in the novel other characters recoil from her countenance in revulsion or horror. There just aren't enough really unattractive protagonists in literature. I kind of think Lynda Barry took all the painfully awkward and horrible feelings of adolescence, intensified them to a radioactive level, and then put them in a literal context, all onto one character. Imagine if things really were as bad as they felt when you were 13? If your insides really were your outsides, every secret fear a boil on your face? If it sounds like it might be intense and a little difficult to read, it is. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that no matter what kind of problems you might have... this book will give you a little perspective on how it could be worse.

I'm glad that I read this book, but I can't see myself reading it again for quite a while, and I can't possibly imagine who I would recommend it to. I think if I knew someone that I thought should be reading this book, what I would recommend to them instead would be about ten different kinds of intensive therapy.

Trigger Warnings: Murder/Homicides, Drug Use, Drinking

I don't know what I feel about Cruddy. I mean, the whole book was indeed, Cruddy - nobody has a happy ending, nothing positive happens to anyone, there's death around every corner, and nobody is nice to anyone really. I'm not saying it's not a good book... I just honestly don't know what audience it is for, or how to describe it.

There were parts of the book where Roberta is writing about someone who is either super high, super drunk, or just being noncoherent, and it's written in such a way that I couldn't read it regardless and had just wished that conversation had been summarized and not written out like that. I thought if maybe I had read the words out loud I might make a bit of sense of it, but I never read this book without someone else around, so I never did that.

I could not stand Vicky. At all. Anytime she talked I just wanted to slap her. One of the most annoying characters I've ever read, and Lynda Barry did a good job at making her that way. And don't get me started on "the father" - just how?? How was he able to do everything that he did and yet nothing happened or no one ended up making connections? I know the before was set in 1967 and the killings tended to be people who didn't have anyone who really cared if they lived or died, but still...

I think that's all I've got to say about it. At least for right now. Here's the one quote Roberta wrote about the father that I thought was interesting:

"After all the things that happened, described and undescribed, if I told you I still loved the father would you understand it? How there was a wire of love running inside of me that I just could not find to pull? It was the side effect of being someone's child, anyone's child, whoever God tossed you to." ( )

This is the darkest, most visceral, weirdest, best book. Lynda Barry is f'ing amazing. That is all. ( )