Wonderboys - Michael Chabon - A Review by Caroline

The Sunday Times were offering Waterstones vouchers enabling you to choose from a different title every week and buy it for 99p. I bought Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon. I absolutely love the film, and I am delighted to say that it was pretty true to the book. The story focuses around a published author who has been writing his next best-seller for the past seven years, while spending most of that time stoned, teaching, and getting married or having affairs. It got a little bit lost in the middle, but it was actually really good to read. I have to admit the film version of Grady Tripp was far more tolerable than the book version, but Crabtree remains the same in both. At one point, I really didn't like Grady in the book, and I did wonder why I was reading the book, but I was determined to persevere, and as it came to the end when everything came together, I found that I had discovered a new and interesting author. I also enjoyed the way the author focused so much on the skill of writing. Anyway, I shall be checking out some of his other books in the future.

Wonderboys - Michael Chabon - A Review by Padraig

This book came as a recommendation.  It also sat on our bookshelves for several years, calling out occasionally: 'read me; go on, read me; you'll enjoy it.'  So I did.  And in fairness the opening pages, even the first night's read, filled me with a familiar jealousy - Chabon can describe the minutiae of detail deliciously.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, that experience then ended, and what came next was a determined trawl through a book that had all the dramatic tension of drying paint - drying paint with some self-indulgent self-disgust thrown in for laughs.

Anyway, the blurb and credits told me that Wonderboys is hilarious; so if you like Chabon's humour, go for it.  Personally, I shall leave Chabon on the shelves, occasionally calling to me, for some time to come.