Selected Amazon Reviews

by Kevin Killian

Selections from the 1,000+ reviews that Killian has written for books, movies, and everyday products on Amazon.com. Subversive and delightful modifiations to a pervasive online art form. Includes an author's introduction and an editor's introduction.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Poetry

54 pages

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Kevin Killian was an American poet, author, and playwright of primarily LGBT literature. He is also a highly regarded editor. My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer, which he co-edited with Peter Gizzi, won the American Book Award for poetry in 2009. His novel, Impossible Princess, won the 2010 Lambda Literary Award as the best gay erotic fiction work of 2009. Killian is also co-founder of the Poets Theater, an influential poetry, stage, and performance group based in San Francisco.

He is married to Dodie Bellamy.

Reviews

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Killian’s dazzling and occasionally acid Amazon reviews of everything from corporate gift baskets to glow-in-the-dark body jewelry, big budget movies to criminally under-read small press poetry, are as much fun to make as they are to eat. This handsome Hooke volume is a deft sampler of what may be the most important conceptual writing project of our time.

[Dusie Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the luck of seeing Kevin read from this book at his European premeire in Basel, CH!!! It was really really fabulous, gut-wrenchingly funny, I had to check myself several times throughout to contain my laughter!

Too bad Kevin doesn't come with the book! Oh, I guess a cd of him reading it might suffice...

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming bit of ephemera. Obviously not meant to be read cover-to-cover but savoured over time.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful! I got this from the library, wondering if even the late, great Kevin Killian could make Amazon reviews worth reading, but I should have known better. His reviews are brilliant! Even the ones you see and think "No way can this be good" turn out to be a pleasure. So what I thought was going to be a brief perusal out of curiosity turned out to be a joyous romp through books and movies (and books about movies), not to mention other products available from the evil empire of retail.

I'm dazzled by the author's gift for making you feel you are talking to a friend who happens to have the gift of appreciation that makes any topic fascinating when he tells you about it.

Clearly I'm going to end up owning this book, it's such good company.

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Killian’s dazzling and occasionally acid Amazon reviews of everything from corporate gift baskets to glow-in-the-dark body jewelry, big budget movies to criminally under-read small press poetry, are as much fun to make as they are to eat. This deft selection is a handsome sampler of what may be the most important conceptual writing project of our time.

[Gili · Rating 5 out of 5]

I checked out this book from the library, and it was so brilliant that I decided to buy a copy. There are countless reviews worthy of rereads. Note: I did not buy the book from amazon. Ew. I know, goodreads is amazon. Gross. I wish I could have hung out with Kevin Killian, or at least been pen pals with him. What a mind! These reviews are everything. Rest in power, Kevin.

[Nick Black · Rating 1 out of 5]

maybe this is entertaining or illuminating if you're a randy old queen in san francisco. i honestly couldn't distinguish what was serious from what was smarmy. maybe all of it, maybe none of it. i was unfamiliar with most of the media being reviewed, and remain unsure whether i was supposed to know it--if Killian was reviewing a canon, it's a canon i don't know and haven't accepted. read about twenty pages of this claptrap a night over two months, growing more and more irritated. there is very little i can recommend from these 704(!) pages. and why did the MIT Press publish this? i've known few things so precious and pretentious and unrewarding, and am vexed at having shelled out money for this book.

also, i very much doubt he was doing the "Black" (vis-a-vis "black") thing in 2005, suggesting there's been some posthumous editing.

bleh. what a waste.

[m bar · Rating 4 out of 5]

this sort of book couldn't exist without modern technology.. yet these reviews almost predate me (some reviews posted a couple months shy of my birthday). i think that's interesting, how the expanse of accessories in the current year actually does have its taproot in the culture of the 2000s. i don't know if the novelty of accessibility has worn off.. but i enjoy how each Killian review treats it as though every procedure deserves its own close and unwavering attention. his vocabulary is knockout and so specific, but i like the "layman subject matter"; provides a context for new words that are harder to parse out in academic texts.

[Sebastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like to think Kevin wrote most of these reviews when he was supposed to be working his day job in admin, thus completing a sacred homosexual ritual: sharing thousands of passionate opinions about art on someone else’s dime.
If you overindulge the practice, you will inevitably reveal something unsettling about yourself, which is evidenced here in Kevin’s long and unhinged endorsement of Katie Holmes’s performance in Mad Money (2008). Nevertheless, his reviews are very charming and funny, and I love our people.

[Alvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This treasure trove of bite-sized reviews of bizarre products, movies, and (alas) poetry is an unending delight. It's full of sly wit, pop culture erudition, and cogent critical analysis. I read selections as a mental palate cleanser between every book I've read for the last ten months and just now finished. It's only been a few minutes, but I already miss Killian's thoroughly original, always surprising, and endlessly charming voice.