RaveThe New York TimesEggers's book, which goes a surprisingly long way toward delivering on its self-satirizing, hyperbolic title, is a profoundly moving, occasionally angry and often hilarious account of those odd and silly things, usually done in the name of Toph. Banished because of his catastrophe from the normalcy of American life, Eggers is forced to wander the globe, propelled by a mission and purpose seldom associated with Generation X, but with a seemingly paradoxical sense of absolute freedom. Instead of getting depressed, he and Toph get even, ''greedily cartwheeling,'' he writes, ''toward everything we are owed.''
Nicholson Baker
MixedThe Atlantic...each of those days is chronicled with the moment-by-moment vividness that Baker has made one of [Baker's] trademarks ... Baker’s idea of good teaching seems to be showering students with empty compliments ... Baker, a specialist in fantasies, can’t resist indulging some pedagogical ones, too—of school days cut back from six hours to two; of only four or five kids per class ... His book is a reminder that kids and teachers are often in the same boat, and both deserve better.
