Customer Reviews

Warp: A Novel

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I received this as an xmas pressie and my copy was put straight into my xmas waste bin. From there it went straight to my local Oxfam shop. Would they dare to put it onto their shelves? Mindless dribble from an author who doesnt seem to realise that she is not the writer that she thinks she is. I would like to ask the reviewers who gave this 5 stars "are you the author or do you know her?"

the book isn't ground-breaking, but nevertheless fun to read. If we really wanted to read ground-breaking stuff we'd pick up a medical journal. we need more one-sitting books and less bible length "page-turners." As for the 30 sec reviewer, let's just say I'm glad he's not doing this professionally. But I gotta say, I enjoyed your column for salon about the amazon experience, keep up the good work, you'll get there. In the mean time, here's 5 for the road...

I thought the best thing about this book were two lines in it. One of them is, "a pack of cards is the devil's prayerbook." The other one, with much more interesting implications than the rest of the text, is this:

"A lie is a blow to the tyranny of fact."

With that line in mind, let me emphatically state that this is a good book. You should read it.

p.s. how in heck did Xanthe get into that house? And who would really want to be sleeping with chicks they've only known for forty-five minutes, anyway?

Absolute unadulterated puerile pap. For such a perilously sleight "novel," this spillage worthy of Onan reads like a much, much longer writing workshop exercise gone metastatically awry. Ill-conceived, poorly executed, and disaffectedly lame ... this is the sort of fiction only someone on the losing end of a bet should be subjected to.

Although Warp's plot is a little thin, Lev's references to pop culture are amusing. He covered the Gen X waterfront pretty well. I would have liked to see him stretch himself a bit, though, perhaps with a reference to Nigel Molesworth instead of Terri Garr. And Lev, there are no women like Xanthe, OK?

I'm not Lev Grossman and I liked the book. Actually I liked it a lot. It's sad and elegic and not very funny, but some of the scenes were honestly moving. Another thing was that the book had exactly the right length for what it was about. There's too many writers who fill too many pages with too little content. I'll definitely look out for more books by this guy. The episode with the punk girl sounded more like the author daydreaming though.

"Warp" features none of the wry intelligence and humor on display in Grossman's Salon essay. Thie first draft of a novel is an aimless, shallow tale told without insight or humor. The characters are unmemorable, the plot is nonexistant, and the dialogue is painfully cliched. I am truly disappointed that I wasted an afternoon reading this drivel.

I was prepared for this to be another machismo leaking sci-fi thing like all the other books i borrow from my boyfriend, but this was actually good! I read it in one sitting and got all wrapped up in and even came back to order a copy for a friend who's birthday is coming up. It's not boring at all!

I had the pleasure of reading Mr. Grossman's book BEFORE the flurry of email surrounding his hilarious Salon article. I only wish that I had written a stellar review of "Warp" earlier so that Mr. Grossman would have not felt the need to bolster his ratings with his own reviews. As an aimless twenty-something myself, I found Warp to be amusing and worth every second of my time. I look forward to the next installment from the mighty Mr. Grossman.

The deluge of both five- and one-star reviews precludes any sober assessment of this novel.Kudos to the author for his moxie and his admission of sabotaging the amazon reviews. Unlike many commentators, I have read the book. I discovered a flimsy structure, cringingly-poor dialogue, and an adolescent-level understanding of intertext, its importance, its subtlety. As it was a first novel, he will no doubt seek to improve (though not for pedantic boors like myself)