postmodernblues's Reviews (465)

I wasn't expecting to like this as much as I did. It's a very sweet romance with a genuinely interesting plot and two likable romantic leads. And it's a When Harry Met Sally adaptation, so of course I had to read it.

"I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date on a tombstone." - Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, page 77

This is one of those you just have to read, you know?

Having read McGee's The Thousandth Floor series (all three books. would not recommend), I recognize some of the characters and plotlines in this story (*ahem*, Daphne), but I think they are better executed here. An American monarchy is a great backdrop for these plotlines, and I think her ideas about fame and leadership are well-developed. However, many of the characters were quite one-sided, particularly the male love interests. To be honest, I would love a 500-page prequel to this series just detailing the events of American history as they played out with this book's nebulous "monarchy". The America of American Royals resembles Britain in places, but the divisions of states (or "duchys", I suppose) is relatively unchanged. There is even mention of the "Princess of Mexico", which leads me to wonder how things like the World Wars occurred with America as a monarchy. So much of America's history is based on its being a democratic state. The romance was cute, and had enough twists and intrigue to keep me engaged, but every turn had me questioning the actual inner-workings of an American monarchy, very few of which received answers.

A very sweet, very quick read that provided some much-needed levity after finishing As I Lay Dying. All of the dialogue and text are palindromes, and some are more clever than others. I'm sure if I was a lot younger I'd absolutely adore this sweet story. Although, if ever I came upon a town with a billboard advertising "Mao Foam" with a picture of Chairman Mao Zedong next to a rendering of a nondescript, communism-red, shaving-cream-type substance, I would run very fast in the opposite direction.

I have never experienced language manipulated in this way. When my middle school English teacher said the rules of grammar were made to be broken, I think this is what she meant. A true masterpiece. I loved Vardaman's chapters in particular.

"History is hard to know, because of all of the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of 'history' it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time- and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened."   - Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, page 67

An insane and spiraling examination of culture and counterculture in Nixon-era America enmeshed with grotesquely appropriate artwork. The drugged-out American novel I really needed.

Worth reading, for me, for the connection with Fall Out Boy, but on the whole not terribly memorable. 

Phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. Even though I predicted the ending, it still it me like a ton of bricks.