While I enjoyed several moments and descriptions in this book, the form made it difficult to do more than skim the surface of the story. Instead of a continuous narrative, it is made up of brief parts, from a single sentence up to several short paragraphs, but never more. Its "chapters" rarely frame the material in a meaningful way and instead seem like arbitrary groupings of anecdotes. Every new piece feels like it could be the beginning of a longer story, and eventually the lack of forward momentum becomes the most enduring aspect of the story.

While some meaning does seep through, in the end it feels slight, as if the experimental structure has dissipated the book's intent. Some readers may feel that there's simply no story there to be told, and while I don't think that's entirely true, I do think it's fair to expect writing to pull readers closer rather than push them away.

As an experiment, this is an interesting one. As a read, it's much less than I hoped it'd be. There were some threads that seemed to promise so much that I wanted them more fully developed, and the fact that each small section simply hit its solitary note and then ended left me frustrated. I'm looking forward to reading Jonathan Goldstein's book in which he retells some stories from the Bible, because from the piece I have heard on This American Life, he employs a similar style to greater narrative effect. ( )

Sometimes funny enough to make me laugh out loud, sometimes profane enough to make me cringe, sometimes just head scratchingly strange. Perhaps I'm not hip or smart enough, but I don't get it. ( )