Customer Reviews

Girl Crazy

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

 

 

Smith's gift as a writer is not only his flair with language, but his fearlessness. His latest book, Girl Crazy, is brutally frank in its depiction of male longing and mid-life confusion. The Toronto he so atmospherically depicts is a humid hellhole of cheap condo construction and failed multiculturalism, and his portrayal of the petty rivalries of small-time community college "academia" is a brilliant satirical send-up. But what makes Girl Crazy such crazy fun to read is that is also a hot and sexy romp that dares to walk on the wild side. Before reading this book, I must confess I never knew yoga pants were that much of a turn-on.

I loved Russell Smith's columns on men's style in the Globe and Mail, and so was interested to check out his fiction. This novel follows Justin, a thirty-ish English instructor at a community college in Toronto who stops to assist a young woman in distress, waiting for an ambulance on the street. He ends up accompanying her to the hospital, they become friends, and quickly more. This woman has, lets call them, issues, and his infatuation with her leads him into involvement with the underbelly of the city.

The story is simple and the reader can easily see what's coming ahead. Smith writes well, but his protagonist is obsessed with sex, seeing women's undergarments through their clothing, the effect of air-conditioning on female anatomy, etc etc. This constant stream of lingerie sighting is tiresome and after the first couple of times, unnecessary. We don't need it every time the man sits in a cafe or wanders down the college hallway. I enjoyed the unfolding of the relationship, but Justin seems unable to see what is staring the rest of us in the face. Presumably, this is where the title comes from.

A quick, unsophisticated read. Not for the (sexually) faint of heart. Borrow it from the library if you think it would appeal.

Loved it - exciting, sexy, daring and compulsively readable! Couldn't put it down, have been recommending it to friends (and now everyone here) for weeks...

Russell Smith's "Girl Crazy" provides a comic and insightful journey into the glam urban underworld that's a fun place to visit but you're not sure you'd want to live there. The characters are smartly drawn and sympathetic -- their foibles are our foibles and we care about their destiny.

An exhilarating trip to Toronto's seedier side. Smith's humour, great dialogue, and compelling characters make for a fun, fast-paced read. Highly recommended.

Finally, a smart look at the real world that actually zips along. Do yourself a favour and pick this one up. Great read full of memorable scenes and characters. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Couldn't put it down. The story is hot, funny, well-written. I love Smith's dialogue, I love his scenes. I love the way he writes Toronto. It's a city worth writing, and he continues to do it beautifully here.

Justin, an unhappy teacher at a community college in Toronto, has just gotten out of a relationship with the reserved Genevieve. They're carrying on an awkward pretense at being friends when he meets Jenna, a girl in her early twenties who is having a miscarriage when he overhears her conversion on a payphone and decides to help. Justin gets her to a hospital where she will be looked after by a friend of his, a medical resident, and slips her his number before he leaves. Jenna calls a few days later and they get together for coffee. Justin is attracted to her toughness, her vulnerability, and her blatant sexuality. Justin loves women, women of all shapes and sizes. He loves their breasts, their hair, their shape, their smell. Much of the novel is devoted to Justin's descriptions of the beautiful women that he encounters.

Justin and Jenna start having a relationship- one that it sexual and raw and tumultuous. Her erratic behaviour draws him in again and again, and he can't seem to let her go. When Justin finds out one of the secrets that Jenna has been hiding, will they be able to make it work, or will that be the end of the road for them?

If I had to describe "Girl Crazy" in one word, it would be "intense". The whole ride is intense, and exhausting, but only in the way that something can be exhausting if it is so new to you. Jenna's world, a world of ripe sexuality and drugs and guns, is so different from the life that Justin led before he met her, yet he is inexplicably drawn to it. If I got to describe this novel in another word, it would be "dark". At times reading the book is like being exposed to the dark underbelly of humanity. Everything that your parents warned you against is in here, from the drugs to the underground poker games to the dimly lit insides of a strip club.

Reading "Girl Crazy" was a little like being a voyeur. We are privy to many of the thoughts that Justin has, and he has a fixation with women. We read about how he feels about women and their various parts, and we read about how the tiniest sliver of silk or a brightly coloured headband can turn him on. It was fascinating, and wasn't pornographic but rather psychological. It was like studying the inside of the stereotypical male brain.

I'm going to caution those who don't appreciate sex in their books to stay away from this one; there is lots in here. However, if you can handle that stuff, "Girl Crazy" is the fascinating portrait of what makes a man tick, while offering insights into the lives of those who tend to make bad decisions.

A refreshingly creepy literary page turner! A distinctly European sensibility played out over a North American pop- culture landscape. Exactly the kind of fresh, urban, unpologetically contemporary work that Can Lit needs.

Not since Martin Amis'' Money have I so enjoyed, if enjoyed is the word, a person''s missteps into hell. Russell Smith, very much in fine form, delivers an elegant. fast-paced, erotic, horrific and at times very funny tale of one man's fall from grace.

Smith''s writing never fails to deliver - one squirms in the heat of the relentless Toronto summer, one smells the one bedroom apartment with it''s damp carpet and caged dog, one bristles in the city's electrical night air, and frankly, no one does nipples erect under fabric like Mr. Smith.

I devoured this book in one sitting, dreading each delicious stumble of the lead character. Not one word was out of place, Russell Smith is certainly at the top of his game.