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Clown Girl
Clown Girl lives in Baloneytown, a seedy neighborhood where drugs, balloon animals, and even rubber chickens contribute to the local currency. Against a backdrop of petty crime, she struggles to live her dreams, calling on cultural masters Charlie Chaplin, Kafka, and da Vinci for inspiration. In an effort to support herself and her layabout performance-artist boyfriend, Clown Girl finds herself unwittingly transformed into a "corporate clown," trapping herself in a cycle of meaningless, high-paid gigs that veer dangerously close to prostitution. Monica Drake has created a novel that riffs on the high comedy of early film stars — most notably Chaplin and W. C. Fields — to raise questions of class, gender, economics, and prejudice. Resisting easy classification, this debut novel blends the bizarre, the humorous, and the gritty with stunning skill.
297 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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January 15, 2009
i am re-writing this review & re-rating this book with a lower rating thanks to a barrage of comments from the book's author, as well as the author's obnoxious ass-kissing friends. these folks made me really stop & think about how i felt about this book, & i came to the conclusion that i liked it even less than i thought i did initially. i usually reserve my one-star ratings for true stinkers--books that made me froth with loathing. this book was just disappointing & dull. it wasn't really interesting enough to get worked up over, until the author began pestering me about her derivative kafka references & fantastical "imaginative" settings, & then i started to think about how much i loathed the main character of this book: a self-centered, passive, bratty, truly pathetic creature who is an aspiring clown. there was nothing like-able about this character, or any other character in the book. the protaganist has a miscarriage early in the book (off-stage) & spends the rest of the book limping around her setting feeling sorry for herself, wondering if she should try to stick things out with her absent clown boyfriend or give in to a burgeoning romance with a dull cop. this is pretty much the crux of the action: clown boyfriend? new cop boyfriend? clown babies? cop babies? & who took my rubber chicken, which is some sort of pathetic security blanket for the clown relationship? this was actually a rung below chick lit because not only was the female protaganist painfully insipid & seemingly powerless to make proactive decisions about the trajectory of her own life, as i have come to expect from the worst of chick lit, but she was patently unlikeable while she was wafting about being helpless obnoxious. i mean, at least the protag of the shopaholic books was kind of witty sometimes. this girl was a witless dullard, & i know it sucks when people don't like your books, but them's the breaks when you publish. attempting to brow-beat people into liking your stuff & sending emissaries to brag about awards you have won is unlikely to have much effect on people with a true understand of the quality expectations they bring to a book. writing a book is hard. writing a good book is even harder. this was not a good book.
June 29, 2020
Clown Girl was first recommended to me by Goodreads' own super-duper book/reader matching algorithm. It was one of the very first suggestions I ever got after joining, in fact. But it wasn't available at my local library and so it sat on my to-read shelf for three years or so, until I decided to go back and purge out titles that it looked like I'd never get around to reading.
Delete, and on to other things.
A couple months passed by and I read a few more titles and went fooling around with the recommendations here again, and lo and behold Clown Girl popped up right away. Huh, I thought, and added it again.
Well, still more time went by and I moved on to a job at the state university and got access to an estimated 4.5 million print titles, plus free access to the InterLibrary Loan system which allowed me to request a book from any other U.S. college library that has a copy not among our boastfully large catalog. Cha-ching! A bookworm's dream come true! So I moved Clown Girl up the list with every intention of reading it ASAP. But things happened, as they often do, and I just never got around to checking it out. Somebody here would rave about a new release, or I'd feel guilted into reading a "classic" that I'd skipped in my high school assigned reading, or I'd have a kid and feel the pressure to get some nonfiction parenting how-to reading done. So Clown Girl STILL sat down around the bottom of my to-read list for another two years, give or take. And I went on another purge, deciding it had been so long that if I hadn't read it by now I surely wasn't going to all.
Delete, and on to other things.
And then a funny thing happened: Clown Girl kept coming back. Clown Girl in the "Recommendations" link. Clown Girl in the "Because you're reading [so-and-so] you might enjoy [such-and-such]" box. Clown Girl in my targeted ads. Clown Girl, Clown Girl, Clown Girl.
The algorithm had spoken. It was time for me to listen.
Clown Girl is certainly an ambitious novel. Drake takes on several very heavy main topics and weaves them together capably in a shockingly original motif. We're led to consider the dehumanization of workers at the hands of corporations, the big conflict of Artistry vs. Employability, and the often swept-under-the-rug topic of miscarriage. And the central characters are clowns, of course. Drake's writing is solid, reliable and workmanlike (though she might take offense at that term, I'm at a loss for a comparable synonym). This style complements her themes well, contrasting with the expected zaniness of clown culture. After all, to the working clown it's no longer all a joke—now it's just a job. Palahniuk's intro makes clear that she started as a short story writer, and it shows. Her point is clear and easy to grasp, but her motif is a little too on the (red-rubber) nose. There may not be enough material to mine for a whole novel and some chapters do feel like they're stretching the story out unnecessarily. The dialogue in particular is either unnaturally stiff or unnaturally keyed-up, but the descriptions and Clown Girl's inner monologue really shine.
3.5 stars out of 5. Intriguing, though heavy-handed and clunky more often than not - but can you really talk about some of these serious issues with much delicacy?
Delete, and on to other things.
A couple months passed by and I read a few more titles and went fooling around with the recommendations here again, and lo and behold Clown Girl popped up right away. Huh, I thought, and added it again.
Well, still more time went by and I moved on to a job at the state university and got access to an estimated 4.5 million print titles, plus free access to the InterLibrary Loan system which allowed me to request a book from any other U.S. college library that has a copy not among our boastfully large catalog. Cha-ching! A bookworm's dream come true! So I moved Clown Girl up the list with every intention of reading it ASAP. But things happened, as they often do, and I just never got around to checking it out. Somebody here would rave about a new release, or I'd feel guilted into reading a "classic" that I'd skipped in my high school assigned reading, or I'd have a kid and feel the pressure to get some nonfiction parenting how-to reading done. So Clown Girl STILL sat down around the bottom of my to-read list for another two years, give or take. And I went on another purge, deciding it had been so long that if I hadn't read it by now I surely wasn't going to all.
Delete, and on to other things.
And then a funny thing happened: Clown Girl kept coming back. Clown Girl in the "Recommendations" link. Clown Girl in the "Because you're reading [so-and-so] you might enjoy [such-and-such]" box. Clown Girl in my targeted ads. Clown Girl, Clown Girl, Clown Girl.
The algorithm had spoken. It was time for me to listen.
Clown Girl is certainly an ambitious novel. Drake takes on several very heavy main topics and weaves them together capably in a shockingly original motif. We're led to consider the dehumanization of workers at the hands of corporations, the big conflict of Artistry vs. Employability, and the often swept-under-the-rug topic of miscarriage. And the central characters are clowns, of course. Drake's writing is solid, reliable and workmanlike (though she might take offense at that term, I'm at a loss for a comparable synonym). This style complements her themes well, contrasting with the expected zaniness of clown culture. After all, to the working clown it's no longer all a joke—now it's just a job. Palahniuk's intro makes clear that she started as a short story writer, and it shows. Her point is clear and easy to grasp, but her motif is a little too on the (red-rubber) nose. There may not be enough material to mine for a whole novel and some chapters do feel like they're stretching the story out unnecessarily. The dialogue in particular is either unnaturally stiff or unnaturally keyed-up, but the descriptions and Clown Girl's inner monologue really shine.
3.5 stars out of 5. Intriguing, though heavy-handed and clunky more often than not - but can you really talk about some of these serious issues with much delicacy?
February 15, 2008
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)
I've talked here before concerning the surprising things I'm learning about books these days, now that I've been a daily critic myself for about nine months now, and especially two factors that more heavily influence what we think of a book than a lot of us realize -- of where we in particular are in our own lives when we read the book (in terms of age, experience, career level, etc), and also how much we've heard about a book before we've read it ourselves. And really, if you want a perfect example of what I'm talking about, let's take today's book under discussion, Monica Drake's highly popular 2006 debut novel Clown Girl, a book that for a couple of years now has been getting talked about in glowing terms from just a whole pile of people I know and admire; I mean, c'mon, the introduction was written by Chuck Freaking Palahniuk, who by the way happened to be a member of the academic writing workshop where this novel first took shape.
And then I read it. Hmm. And I realized that it's not so much that this novel is truly unique or original that it's been getting so much attention, but that it uses a highly unique and inventive trick for telling an otherwise pretty plain story -- that is, Drake tells the story of a struggling young artist in the corporate world through the metaphor of professional clowns, a gimmick I can literally picture a tableful of dour grad students with tasteful beards and drab GAP sweaters delighting over when first coming across at some summer workshop in some quaint upper-class small town in the Hudson River Valley. Because admittedly, the gimmick is a cute one, one that can be stretched further than you ever thought a "clown in the corporate world" one could; how our unstable hero Nita got into the whole industry in the first place for its performance-art qualities, because of the grand tradition of French mimes and Cirque du Soleil and all the rest, but now finds herself working corporate parties and other "red-nose events" in order to pay the bills. And how her fellow-clown boyfriend is off in northern California as we speak, interviewing for "clown college" (i.e. grad school at UC Berkeley); and how she is getting pressured by her lesbian co-workers to get into the erotic/stripper side of the whole clown scene for extra bucks; and how when she misplaces her rubber chicken, she puts up flyers all over the neighborhood as if it were a lost dog. Yeah, cute, like I said, a trick just good enough to hold together an especially strong slam poem or New Yorker short story.
Ah, but here's the problem, that the gimmick wears thin in a 300-page novel; and when it does, you're left with a pretty typical grad-school storyline at its core, one that could be substituted with the plotline of a thousand other stories by grad students without anyone ever being the wiser. Because when all is said and done, Clown Girl is ultimately about unpleasant white slackers in their twenties, deliberately living in sh-tty neighborhoods not because they have to but because they are rejecting their white-bread middle-class backgrounds, pursuing lives as conceptual artists and small-level drug dealers and full-time academes as a way of pushing off real life as long as possible. And this gets into the complication I was talking about -- because I used to like such novels, see, back when I was in my early/mid-twenties myself and living more of that kind of lifestyle myself, and can understand why so many people I respect have been going nuts over this book recently. It's not a bad book, that's the point I really want to hammer home today; it's just that I've read this story way too many times in my life now, a story I find less compelling with each year I get older, a story that ultimately cannot be saved by a literary gimmick no matter how cute that gimmick is.
And this gets into the second complication I mentioned before -- that since I had heard so many great things about this book going into it, I'm tempted to be more disappointed than normal, and to give the novel a lower score than it deserves. And the truth is that it doesn't deserve a low score -- it's a well-written book, after all, a tight and plain-spoken story that you can get through in a single day if you're dedicated. It's just that you need to be careful with this book, to not expect too much out of it, to accept that it's a product of an academic environment and therefore has all the trappings of grad-school literature. Do this and the book is sure to entertain; expect more like I did, and you're bound to be disappointed.
Out of 10: 7.5
I've talked here before concerning the surprising things I'm learning about books these days, now that I've been a daily critic myself for about nine months now, and especially two factors that more heavily influence what we think of a book than a lot of us realize -- of where we in particular are in our own lives when we read the book (in terms of age, experience, career level, etc), and also how much we've heard about a book before we've read it ourselves. And really, if you want a perfect example of what I'm talking about, let's take today's book under discussion, Monica Drake's highly popular 2006 debut novel Clown Girl, a book that for a couple of years now has been getting talked about in glowing terms from just a whole pile of people I know and admire; I mean, c'mon, the introduction was written by Chuck Freaking Palahniuk, who by the way happened to be a member of the academic writing workshop where this novel first took shape.
And then I read it. Hmm. And I realized that it's not so much that this novel is truly unique or original that it's been getting so much attention, but that it uses a highly unique and inventive trick for telling an otherwise pretty plain story -- that is, Drake tells the story of a struggling young artist in the corporate world through the metaphor of professional clowns, a gimmick I can literally picture a tableful of dour grad students with tasteful beards and drab GAP sweaters delighting over when first coming across at some summer workshop in some quaint upper-class small town in the Hudson River Valley. Because admittedly, the gimmick is a cute one, one that can be stretched further than you ever thought a "clown in the corporate world" one could; how our unstable hero Nita got into the whole industry in the first place for its performance-art qualities, because of the grand tradition of French mimes and Cirque du Soleil and all the rest, but now finds herself working corporate parties and other "red-nose events" in order to pay the bills. And how her fellow-clown boyfriend is off in northern California as we speak, interviewing for "clown college" (i.e. grad school at UC Berkeley); and how she is getting pressured by her lesbian co-workers to get into the erotic/stripper side of the whole clown scene for extra bucks; and how when she misplaces her rubber chicken, she puts up flyers all over the neighborhood as if it were a lost dog. Yeah, cute, like I said, a trick just good enough to hold together an especially strong slam poem or New Yorker short story.
Ah, but here's the problem, that the gimmick wears thin in a 300-page novel; and when it does, you're left with a pretty typical grad-school storyline at its core, one that could be substituted with the plotline of a thousand other stories by grad students without anyone ever being the wiser. Because when all is said and done, Clown Girl is ultimately about unpleasant white slackers in their twenties, deliberately living in sh-tty neighborhoods not because they have to but because they are rejecting their white-bread middle-class backgrounds, pursuing lives as conceptual artists and small-level drug dealers and full-time academes as a way of pushing off real life as long as possible. And this gets into the complication I was talking about -- because I used to like such novels, see, back when I was in my early/mid-twenties myself and living more of that kind of lifestyle myself, and can understand why so many people I respect have been going nuts over this book recently. It's not a bad book, that's the point I really want to hammer home today; it's just that I've read this story way too many times in my life now, a story I find less compelling with each year I get older, a story that ultimately cannot be saved by a literary gimmick no matter how cute that gimmick is.
And this gets into the second complication I mentioned before -- that since I had heard so many great things about this book going into it, I'm tempted to be more disappointed than normal, and to give the novel a lower score than it deserves. And the truth is that it doesn't deserve a low score -- it's a well-written book, after all, a tight and plain-spoken story that you can get through in a single day if you're dedicated. It's just that you need to be careful with this book, to not expect too much out of it, to accept that it's a product of an academic environment and therefore has all the trappings of grad-school literature. Do this and the book is sure to entertain; expect more like I did, and you're bound to be disappointed.
Out of 10: 7.5
December 1, 2007
Finishing this book was a real chore. I found Clown Girl to be amateurishly written with way too many run-on silly similes. The main character is never likable and I was never able to relate to her or understand why anyone would do anything she does. The far-fetched, melodramatic scenes never allowed me to get into the book at all. I could never suspend disbelief. Monica Drake is trying hard to be quirky, but the plot is essentially a conventional romantic comedy that flops on the comedy part: A pretty girl makes unbelievable, stupid decisions repeatedly, but people like her because she is pretty, and she is saved by a knight in shining armor at the end.
The charitable side of me likes to think Monica Drake has potential. There were some semi-creative ideas in here and I kind of enjoyed her descriptions of the neighborhoods like Forsalesville. But that was maybe 1% of the book -- not enough to redeem it.
The charitable side of me likes to think Monica Drake has potential. There were some semi-creative ideas in here and I kind of enjoyed her descriptions of the neighborhoods like Forsalesville. But that was maybe 1% of the book -- not enough to redeem it.
September 24, 2011
Thursday was my first meeting back with the Oakdale Prison book group, and this was the book we discussed. I've been interested in this book since it was first released (how to deny the attraction to the rubber chicken?) and was pleased to have the chance to read it, but somewhat concerned about the dynamics of the discussion with male convicts. That's because this is something of a girl's book. Not chick-lit -- it's not about shopping or boys or ladder-climbing, but then again, it is, but not with a high heel and martini on the cover. This is not your average twenty-something, and that's what I loved about it. She is wholly original, skewed, a product of her environment, but distinct in herself, and I loved her. If read from one particular perspective, it is a feminist treatise, the clown metaphor standing in for womanhood. Oh, that's a scary word to mention in a roomful of convicted sex offenders, but it turns out the guys loved her, too.
There's a lot more going on in this text than first meets the eye. There are themes of loss, orphanhood, control, ownership, intellectual property, chance, art, identity...I could go on. The characters are well-drawn, but always seen through the eyes of our narrator, so we can see them through her, but also speculate who they are outside of her. Drake has a lot of fun with wordplay and slapstick and classic film-era comedy references, and most of it works on a deeper level, without making you terribly conscious that there is a deeper level.
Our discussion dug into all of this stuff, and more. I understand Kristen Wiig of Saturday Night Live owns the movie rights and is working on the screenplay. Drake is due for her second novel any day now, with themes of procreation and family-making. No date set yet, as far as I can tell. But I'll be looking for it.
There's a lot more going on in this text than first meets the eye. There are themes of loss, orphanhood, control, ownership, intellectual property, chance, art, identity...I could go on. The characters are well-drawn, but always seen through the eyes of our narrator, so we can see them through her, but also speculate who they are outside of her. Drake has a lot of fun with wordplay and slapstick and classic film-era comedy references, and most of it works on a deeper level, without making you terribly conscious that there is a deeper level.
Our discussion dug into all of this stuff, and more. I understand Kristen Wiig of Saturday Night Live owns the movie rights and is working on the screenplay. Drake is due for her second novel any day now, with themes of procreation and family-making. No date set yet, as far as I can tell. But I'll be looking for it.
July 10, 2023
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. I haven't enjoyed a book more, been intrigued by a book more and really learned something from reading a book more than while reading Clown Girl, by Monica Drake. In quite a long time, in fact. I've had a hard time trying to get really into a book, the last year, due to many factors, work, little free time, the Pandemic but I got into this book and fast. Its a novel about a cop and a clown and many things in-between and man, is it good! I'm married to a man who used to be a cop, and since I recognize that about half the police officers out there are good people and the other half aren't, this book shall we say was right up my alley. The dialogue between Nita the Clown and Jarrod the cop is really good. Very believable, convincing and true. Its evident that Drake has known a police officer or at the very least done really good research. But the dialogue is superb!
I've never read Drake before, other than a short review of Café Lena that she wrote in 2003 for Willamette Week, something I read while doing research for a book I'm writing on the history of Portland restaurants. So, this is really the first book of hers that I've read. In a nutshell, the book is outstanding, and a standout and for the life of me, why this book has not been made into a film remains a huge mystery. But I realize that in today's world, it might not pass the sniff test for politically correct, as this book is about a Clown and a Cop, or more respectfully... a "police officer." I loved that distinction and if you read the book, you'll 'get' the reference.
The book was published in 2006, by Hawthorne Books, an excellent small publishing house in Portland, Oregon. So, in the sense that it was published 16 long years ago, 2006, the year of the death of James Chasse, Alien Boy, and considering that now, in 2022, we're dealing with at least the past five years of intense cop hatred, there are some, who today might not look favorably on a book that is basically a love story about a Clown and a cop. But I love this book. It goes in my permanent collection and I plan on reading it a second time.
But Cancel Culture, cranky, fun-hating wankers aside, this book is just soooooooo inventive and original and just so original. Did I say original? Because it is, it's soooo original. In all my life I've never read anything like it. Its funny, its sad, its full of unexpected moments, because at core, Nita the main character is probably the MOST unreliable narrative voice I've ever encountered and yet, she's also really likeable. The book contains so many truths about society and how we perceive ourselves and each other. The fears we have, the way others try to sabotage innocence so they can destroy the sparkling lives of the young, and turn them into their own miserable lives in Baloney Town. This is universal. It happens everywhere and the path to that destruction is in drugs and alcohol and all the other vices, just like the book illustrates.
The dynamics between Nita the clown and Rex her clown sometime-boyfriend are true to life. She loves him too much, thinks he's noble when he's not, idolizes him way too much, which is really typical of young women, before they come to intimate knowledge of their anger. Sometimes it takes real strife to get in touch with your anger, as a woman, but when the stark light of reality shines a light on the joke you have become to others in your midst, you will often stand up and say: "NOT ME. I'm done and I'm outa here!"
The characters are full bodied and mostly likeable. Herman is not a bad guy, he's kind. He lets Nita live in his house, even thought she's unstable, self-destructive and seems to have little personal pride. Nadia Italia mocks her relentlessly, and you can see Nadia so well. She's a thickly muscled body builder type, jealous of Nita because Nita and Herman used to be a couple and Herman still cares about Nita. But Nadia is the kind of evil girl who feeds Nita's dog Chance Marijuana, not just once but twice. And she's mean and cruel and you as the reader want to protect Nita, you want to punch Nadia and lead Nita away, have coffee with her, mother her, try to save her, because like all lost puppies and kittens in the world, Nita is pitiful and adorable in her pathetic hope and youthful innocence of the way the real world operates.
Without giving away what happens, this is a complex novel that is also full of really funny scenes that you can see, in vivid Technicolor details. The prose is beautiful. The bar scene and the summersault on the pool table? The fire scene at night, with the dry grass in the back yard catching on fire? The stalkers and the Clown fetishists, I never knew ANY of that. So in a very real sense this book has opened my eyes on a whole subculture I never knew anything about. Clown Prostitutes? I had NO idea.
There are stylistic things I might not have done. There are a couple expressions that Drake uses frequently. "Ta Da! Voila! Drat!" But in the context of this book and in the real innocence of Nita, it works. There are other things, too. Nita doesn't appear to eat, other than to drink a beer or two. And there is NO description about her appearance, so you don't know if she's a brunette, or blond or a read head. All you do know about Nita is that she's rail thin, rarely eats and has "perfect lips." That refusal by Drake to reveal Nita was a choice and I think a smart one. She remains what the reader conjures up. She remains a mystery and she could be anything.
I've looked over some other reviews of this book and what surprised me are the negative reviews or the malice about Nita. Some people really didn't like her, but I did. I think it has to do with my age and that I'm the mother of a 30-year-old. Its hard not to think in a motherly way about Nita. She's alone, she's naïve, she's an orphan and that part of you that cares about such girls wants to save her, to show her the right path. But the character that does that is of course, Jarrod. His character is likeable in the extreme and if there is a hero in this story, its him.
The last chapter is EXCEPTIONAL. Every word. Its clear this section was important to Drake and that she worked on it a lot. There is some editorializing that goes on but I can't say I disagree with anything Nita says. I read the final chapter and I have to say I was quite moved by it emotionally. There is so much I saw in this book that I've seen in the real, gritty, tough world. I loved Baloney Town, which reminded me in EVERY way of 1970s NW Portland, when it was a slum basically. Which is where I grew up. The sights and sounds of Baloney Town, so much like the NW Portland of the 1970s. Eerily similar in fact, and so intriguing.
All in all, this was such a damn good book. I enjoyed it SO much and will read it a second and perhaps even a third time. Highly recommended!
I've never read Drake before, other than a short review of Café Lena that she wrote in 2003 for Willamette Week, something I read while doing research for a book I'm writing on the history of Portland restaurants. So, this is really the first book of hers that I've read. In a nutshell, the book is outstanding, and a standout and for the life of me, why this book has not been made into a film remains a huge mystery. But I realize that in today's world, it might not pass the sniff test for politically correct, as this book is about a Clown and a Cop, or more respectfully... a "police officer." I loved that distinction and if you read the book, you'll 'get' the reference.
The book was published in 2006, by Hawthorne Books, an excellent small publishing house in Portland, Oregon. So, in the sense that it was published 16 long years ago, 2006, the year of the death of James Chasse, Alien Boy, and considering that now, in 2022, we're dealing with at least the past five years of intense cop hatred, there are some, who today might not look favorably on a book that is basically a love story about a Clown and a cop. But I love this book. It goes in my permanent collection and I plan on reading it a second time.
But Cancel Culture, cranky, fun-hating wankers aside, this book is just soooooooo inventive and original and just so original. Did I say original? Because it is, it's soooo original. In all my life I've never read anything like it. Its funny, its sad, its full of unexpected moments, because at core, Nita the main character is probably the MOST unreliable narrative voice I've ever encountered and yet, she's also really likeable. The book contains so many truths about society and how we perceive ourselves and each other. The fears we have, the way others try to sabotage innocence so they can destroy the sparkling lives of the young, and turn them into their own miserable lives in Baloney Town. This is universal. It happens everywhere and the path to that destruction is in drugs and alcohol and all the other vices, just like the book illustrates.
The dynamics between Nita the clown and Rex her clown sometime-boyfriend are true to life. She loves him too much, thinks he's noble when he's not, idolizes him way too much, which is really typical of young women, before they come to intimate knowledge of their anger. Sometimes it takes real strife to get in touch with your anger, as a woman, but when the stark light of reality shines a light on the joke you have become to others in your midst, you will often stand up and say: "NOT ME. I'm done and I'm outa here!"
The characters are full bodied and mostly likeable. Herman is not a bad guy, he's kind. He lets Nita live in his house, even thought she's unstable, self-destructive and seems to have little personal pride. Nadia Italia mocks her relentlessly, and you can see Nadia so well. She's a thickly muscled body builder type, jealous of Nita because Nita and Herman used to be a couple and Herman still cares about Nita. But Nadia is the kind of evil girl who feeds Nita's dog Chance Marijuana, not just once but twice. And she's mean and cruel and you as the reader want to protect Nita, you want to punch Nadia and lead Nita away, have coffee with her, mother her, try to save her, because like all lost puppies and kittens in the world, Nita is pitiful and adorable in her pathetic hope and youthful innocence of the way the real world operates.
Without giving away what happens, this is a complex novel that is also full of really funny scenes that you can see, in vivid Technicolor details. The prose is beautiful. The bar scene and the summersault on the pool table? The fire scene at night, with the dry grass in the back yard catching on fire? The stalkers and the Clown fetishists, I never knew ANY of that. So in a very real sense this book has opened my eyes on a whole subculture I never knew anything about. Clown Prostitutes? I had NO idea.
There are stylistic things I might not have done. There are a couple expressions that Drake uses frequently. "Ta Da! Voila! Drat!" But in the context of this book and in the real innocence of Nita, it works. There are other things, too. Nita doesn't appear to eat, other than to drink a beer or two. And there is NO description about her appearance, so you don't know if she's a brunette, or blond or a read head. All you do know about Nita is that she's rail thin, rarely eats and has "perfect lips." That refusal by Drake to reveal Nita was a choice and I think a smart one. She remains what the reader conjures up. She remains a mystery and she could be anything.
I've looked over some other reviews of this book and what surprised me are the negative reviews or the malice about Nita. Some people really didn't like her, but I did. I think it has to do with my age and that I'm the mother of a 30-year-old. Its hard not to think in a motherly way about Nita. She's alone, she's naïve, she's an orphan and that part of you that cares about such girls wants to save her, to show her the right path. But the character that does that is of course, Jarrod. His character is likeable in the extreme and if there is a hero in this story, its him.
The last chapter is EXCEPTIONAL. Every word. Its clear this section was important to Drake and that she worked on it a lot. There is some editorializing that goes on but I can't say I disagree with anything Nita says. I read the final chapter and I have to say I was quite moved by it emotionally. There is so much I saw in this book that I've seen in the real, gritty, tough world. I loved Baloney Town, which reminded me in EVERY way of 1970s NW Portland, when it was a slum basically. Which is where I grew up. The sights and sounds of Baloney Town, so much like the NW Portland of the 1970s. Eerily similar in fact, and so intriguing.
All in all, this was such a damn good book. I enjoyed it SO much and will read it a second and perhaps even a third time. Highly recommended!
June 15, 2010
Such a wild, strange book. It was funny, dark, and oddly erotic at times, and I really enjoyed this. I had only read some of Monica's shorts prior to this, but really found this to be an entertaining, thought-provoking, and touching novel. I can't wait to see what she does next.
June 16, 2008
I guess Drake was making up her own genre—clown noir—or maybe I’m just not familiar with it. If she was, then she could look to Katherine Dunn as the foremother of the genre, but a mother whose teat she needs to keep suckling…as in, she’s not there yet.
It was neither subtle nor flagrantly funny. I felt like it needed to be one or the other, or a juggling act of both. I actually think it would be quite good as a movie. Then everything she tells us would be shown instead.
Basic synopsis: Clown Girl stays at home in Baloneytown while boyfriend Rex Galore moves to the big city. At home, she finds everything she was looking for in herself and her friendly neighbor cop.
Her thesis: Corporate America is keeping us down. Oh, wait, we're keeping ourselves down. Stop blaming society!
If Drake had fully explored the idea of a kind of clown noir, I think it could have been something. But instead she tries to make her novel more than chick lit in a clown costume by adding allegorical superstructures unsuccessfully.
It was neither subtle nor flagrantly funny. I felt like it needed to be one or the other, or a juggling act of both. I actually think it would be quite good as a movie. Then everything she tells us would be shown instead.
Basic synopsis: Clown Girl stays at home in Baloneytown while boyfriend Rex Galore moves to the big city. At home, she finds everything she was looking for in herself and her friendly neighbor cop.
Her thesis: Corporate America is keeping us down. Oh, wait, we're keeping ourselves down. Stop blaming society!
If Drake had fully explored the idea of a kind of clown noir, I think it could have been something. But instead she tries to make her novel more than chick lit in a clown costume by adding allegorical superstructures unsuccessfully.
April 17, 2015
4.0 hearts
What I love most about this book is the absurdity. You have this girl who tries to get by working as a clown, all while "juggling" a horrendous long distance relationship, a landlord that just happens to be her ex-boyfriend and his malicious girlfriend and a cop who keeps saving her from whatever petty crime she attempts next.
It's whimsical and Nita/Sniffles is certainly not picture perfect. Many reviews I've read have wanted to complain that she isn't likable, but I completely disagree. She does things that you don't agree with, sure, but not enough to make you despise her.
It's this absurdity and whimsicality that makes the book go, but it's not picture perfect, just like Sniffles.
The cop that continues to save her does start becoming a plot device and later in the story you are caught up in how repetitive everything seems. That, coupled with that holy shit way that she manages to make every arrest even worse for herself just makes you shake your head like uhhhh, come on now.
I still think it's a very fun and quick read. There are some hilarious moments, but not enough to block out the repetition later in the novel.
What I love most about this book is the absurdity. You have this girl who tries to get by working as a clown, all while "juggling" a horrendous long distance relationship, a landlord that just happens to be her ex-boyfriend and his malicious girlfriend and a cop who keeps saving her from whatever petty crime she attempts next.
It's whimsical and Nita/Sniffles is certainly not picture perfect. Many reviews I've read have wanted to complain that she isn't likable, but I completely disagree. She does things that you don't agree with, sure, but not enough to make you despise her.
It's this absurdity and whimsicality that makes the book go, but it's not picture perfect, just like Sniffles.
The cop that continues to save her does start becoming a plot device and later in the story you are caught up in how repetitive everything seems. That, coupled with that holy shit way that she manages to make every arrest even worse for herself just makes you shake your head like uhhhh, come on now.
I still think it's a very fun and quick read. There are some hilarious moments, but not enough to block out the repetition later in the novel.
August 1, 2011
Drake spins a marvelous tale but the real reason I think I loved this book so much is not only that Nita speaks to me in an almost eerie way, but also because Drake inverts the traditional chick-lit story by stating outright what it is that makes these clumsy, clueless, grandiose, insecure women appealing. She makes it clear from the very title what Nita is. She’s a clown. No mincing words. Nita is a clown and Drake shows how hard it is not to be a clown when hiding behind makeup, clothes, images and pie-in-the-sky ideas is all one has ever known. I’m a clown, though less clownish (I hope) as I get older but if you began as a clown, bumbling your way through life, you will find much to like about Nita and her slapstick life. In Nita, using the raucous background of clowns and her inversion of the modern chick-lit novel, Drake creates a character who tells a story we are familiar with but have not wholly heard before. Read my entire review here.
January 3, 2011
It's so hard to write a comedic novel--especially one that allows for genuine human absurdity rather than some forced ironic posturing. Clown Girl somehow finds the perfect center of black comedy: the space where the humour comes not from a diminishment or belittling of the protagonist's pain but a bottomless acceptance of it. Kafka, Chaplin, Emmet Kelly, and W.C. Fields are all invoked here, quite appropriately. Slapstick collides with existential conundra; our heroine's search for love, community, family, and art are all ennobled by the patent ridiculousness of her life.
Did I mention it's really damn funny?
Don't be fooled by the wacky premise; this isn't a gimmick kind of book. Yes, it pivots around the world of clowning; and yes there is a heartbreaking quest for a lost rubber chicken; and yes our heroine does get involved in the seamy coulrophiliac underbelly of Baloneytown; and yes, there is a mystery involving stolen pee. It's a comedy, after all. But like all the best comedy it invites both the sympathy and the intellect to come out to play.
Did I mention it's really damn funny?
Don't be fooled by the wacky premise; this isn't a gimmick kind of book. Yes, it pivots around the world of clowning; and yes there is a heartbreaking quest for a lost rubber chicken; and yes our heroine does get involved in the seamy coulrophiliac underbelly of Baloneytown; and yes, there is a mystery involving stolen pee. It's a comedy, after all. But like all the best comedy it invites both the sympathy and the intellect to come out to play.
July 20, 2008
What an interesting experience to read a book the whole way through and not once, ever, did I like —or even care about— the protagonist. I didn't care if she got a happy ending, and, frankly, would have preferred a catastophic demise. I kept feeling like the book would deliver a good sucker punch, but it just kept loitering in the zone between odd and annoying. I couldn't even properly hate it. And this is a book about a CLOWN.
Weird.
Weird.
October 26, 2008
I fear, after reading the other ho-hum reviews of this book, that perhaps teaching has destroyed my brain because I was completely charmed by Clown Girl. I found Nita reminiscent of Steve Urkel in her propensity for doing the exact wrong thing predictably in every situation the novel places her, but I was rooting for her the entire time. And let me say, for the first couple pages Rex Galore shows up, I was surprised by the story. Any story that can surprise me 7/8ths from the end I consider a winner.
January 26, 2011
Amazon has been recommending this book to me for a long time, and I finally decided to take them up on it. I should have done so a lot sooner. Man, whoever have thought Amazon would recommend me something that was actually GOOD? Considering they recommend the Spanish version of novels to me (I can't read Spanish and have never given Amazon the idea that I could), you wouldn't think so. However, "Clown Girl" makes up for all of the bad recommendations Amazon has ever given me. This is a seriously impressive story centered around an extremely singular character presented through the fascinatingly distorted lens of Drake's imaginatively skewed world. Rather than function as a gimmick, the odd dystopian sort of world that Drake presents allows us to experience Nita's story in a fresh way. The sort of thing you would miss if you looked straight on. In short, this is a very interesting novel, and one that was a good time to read.
April 25, 2015
I am drawn to books about people living on the fringes of culture but the protagonist of this book is a twenty something down on her luck white girl living in (aka gentrifying) a "bad" (aka full of poor people of color) neighborhood and being a clown. There's a lot of hand wringing over whether she will or will not do one or both of two terrible things: date a cop she's flirting with (ohgodnoooo) and do clown fetish related sex work (obvs not an exciting moral dilemma to this reader). The writing is fun and lively enough that I was considering reading through to the end but I am full of too much loathing for this character so NOPE.
December 21, 2009
Clown Girl is not a goofy funny novel, but it isn't supposed to be, regardless of what preconceived notions you get from the title and the picture of the rubber chicken (Plucky!) on the cover. What Clown Girl is is a great first novel from a very talented writer. I can't wait to read more of what Monica Drake has to offer. Thank you, Chuck Palahniuk, for recommending this gem.
Nita has decided she is a clown. Not a commercial sell out, but a real artist, and she's modeling herself after her absent boyfriend, Rex Galore. The problem with Nita's aspirations is that she isn't a very good clown, artistically or otherwise. She refuses to give up her dream, however, even to the detriment of her own well-being. This is the label she's applied to herself. And that's what this book is really about--the labels we subscribe to, the perceptions we have of who we are and who we want to be. It is about how others see us, our motivations for our actions and the implications of those actions. This novel has depth, and that depth makes a simple story about an unfortunate clown girl an excellent read.
Nita has decided she is a clown. Not a commercial sell out, but a real artist, and she's modeling herself after her absent boyfriend, Rex Galore. The problem with Nita's aspirations is that she isn't a very good clown, artistically or otherwise. She refuses to give up her dream, however, even to the detriment of her own well-being. This is the label she's applied to herself. And that's what this book is really about--the labels we subscribe to, the perceptions we have of who we are and who we want to be. It is about how others see us, our motivations for our actions and the implications of those actions. This novel has depth, and that depth makes a simple story about an unfortunate clown girl an excellent read.
March 6, 2022
Sniffles, AKA Nita, brings absurdity to the darkest places. Miscarriage, sexual assault, animal abuse, emotional abuse, misogyny, medical gaslighting: all of this darkness (which remains just as dark and troubling as it sounds) lives in the same world as Drake's clowning. Set in the fictional land of metaphor and satire known as Baloneytown, Nita is the titular clown girl. We're introduced to her performing balloon art on the street post-miscarriage, where she has a cardiac episode, and things snowball from there. From her interactions with lustful colourophiles, her fellow female clowns, the other impoverished folk of Baloneytown, a cop who becomes a recurring character, and Rex Galore--the "away trying to get into clown college" boyfriend and love of Nita's life; to her pursuing of art in the face of financial need in the face of the misogyny inherent to clowning; and wow so much more; the book is relatively short but packs a real punch.
Clown Girl goes from dark to absurd without a moment's notice, but for my taste it doesn't feel like it's ever taking the piss out of any of it's topics. Maybe that's because we read the story from Nita's perspective, and it's easy to read between the lines of dread as something not far from self-deprecation, a kind of self-defense mechanism I find myself familiar with. We aren't reading it as a distant observer, but rather as Nita trying to comfort herself with things that are making her feel truly horrible: and of course she does so with goofy, often sardonic humor. And sometimes she even gets on her own case about it.
Towards the end of the book I found myself getting worked up along with Nita, and was certain I would rate this book 5*. However, the ending was a true disappointment. Without spoiling anything, I felt certain that Nita had achieved a certain kind of character development, which was instead compromised in the last page and a half. It was not a terrible ending, but it wasn't as effective. 4*.
Clown Girl goes from dark to absurd without a moment's notice, but for my taste it doesn't feel like it's ever taking the piss out of any of it's topics. Maybe that's because we read the story from Nita's perspective, and it's easy to read between the lines of dread as something not far from self-deprecation, a kind of self-defense mechanism I find myself familiar with. We aren't reading it as a distant observer, but rather as Nita trying to comfort herself with things that are making her feel truly horrible: and of course she does so with goofy, often sardonic humor. And sometimes she even gets on her own case about it.
Towards the end of the book I found myself getting worked up along with Nita, and was certain I would rate this book 5*. However, the ending was a true disappointment. Without spoiling anything, I felt certain that Nita had achieved a certain kind of character development, which was instead compromised in the last page and a half. It was not a terrible ending, but it wasn't as effective. 4*.
March 12, 2020
So, I do not remember how this ended up on my to-read but it has been there for a while. I got a copy last week and was excited to see that Palhunik wrote the introduction. He is quite effusive with his praise and as I find Palhunik's work funny I was interested to dive into Clown Girl (apparently Chuck and Monica were at Iowa together and Chuck thinks Monica is a better story teller than he).
Ugh. Disappointment all around. The story itself is pathetic and the main character is annoying (yes, I know that in itself is a schtick). There is also the whole "is she independent (after all, it is her money that is supporting Rex)" or "is she just a victim of misogyny (after all, she is nothing without Rex)". Drake attempted to hint the latter with the whole "society does this to me" along with Nita's orphanhood (she is alone and needy because she has no family), but Jerrod (who after all gets the girl in the end) argues for self determination...we all have a choice.
The writing was repetitive, I did not find any funny moments (despite it being about a clown and filled with groan-inducing one-liners), and the girl gets new (and better) boy Disney-esque ending was nausea inducing.
It was not quite a one star because there are some decent quotes and a I learned two new words: coulrophile (one who fetishes clowns) and coulrophobia (fear of clowns), although it was quite annoying that she used both at least 30 times in the course of the novel.
Ugh. Disappointment all around. The story itself is pathetic and the main character is annoying (yes, I know that in itself is a schtick). There is also the whole "is she independent (after all, it is her money that is supporting Rex)" or "is she just a victim of misogyny (after all, she is nothing without Rex)". Drake attempted to hint the latter with the whole "society does this to me" along with Nita's orphanhood (she is alone and needy because she has no family), but Jerrod (who after all gets the girl in the end) argues for self determination...we all have a choice.
The writing was repetitive, I did not find any funny moments (despite it being about a clown and filled with groan-inducing one-liners), and the girl gets new (and better) boy Disney-esque ending was nausea inducing.
It was not quite a one star because there are some decent quotes and a I learned two new words: coulrophile (one who fetishes clowns) and coulrophobia (fear of clowns), although it was quite annoying that she used both at least 30 times in the course of the novel.
December 30, 2011
I picked up this book with high expectations, considering that some writers I really admire and enjoy had good things to say about this book. Almost right away, I found myself irritated. I kept reading, though, because I wanted to believe that the brilliance and humor I'd heard about would appear, but it never did. At the end I found myself grasping for reasons to appreciate it, but I failed. Even the much-vaunted class/gender/social analysis did nothing for me. You mean to tell me that sometimes women get into crummy relationships with guys who use them? And that sometimes we have to do things we don't agree with ethically to survive? You don't say.
But the biggest issue for me is the fact that the lead character, Nita, was completely insufferable. I know that "likability" in fictional characters is something a lot of people debate, this idea that you somehow have to like a character for them to be worthwhile, but this is the thing - you are asking your reader to spend several hours with a character - not just WITH them, but intimately connected, like Borg-style brain melding with them - and so you should at least do them the courtesy of providing them with a character who is sympathetic or interesting in some way.
Listen, I really want to like books that people write. I don't have high standards for them. I really don't. I just ask that you entertain me, or that you make me think, or you make me feel something. That's all I want out of a book. Yet this book did not manage to achieve any of those goals, and that makes me sad, especially since it seems like Drake spent a lot of time working on this book.
P.S. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who didn't like this book. I was worried that maybe I missed something that everyone else saw, but I see now that, no, lots of other people didn't like this book either.
But the biggest issue for me is the fact that the lead character, Nita, was completely insufferable. I know that "likability" in fictional characters is something a lot of people debate, this idea that you somehow have to like a character for them to be worthwhile, but this is the thing - you are asking your reader to spend several hours with a character - not just WITH them, but intimately connected, like Borg-style brain melding with them - and so you should at least do them the courtesy of providing them with a character who is sympathetic or interesting in some way.
Listen, I really want to like books that people write. I don't have high standards for them. I really don't. I just ask that you entertain me, or that you make me think, or you make me feel something. That's all I want out of a book. Yet this book did not manage to achieve any of those goals, and that makes me sad, especially since it seems like Drake spent a lot of time working on this book.
P.S. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who didn't like this book. I was worried that maybe I missed something that everyone else saw, but I see now that, no, lots of other people didn't like this book either.
February 8, 2009
I'd seen and nearly bought Monica Drake's first novel a few times in bookstores before it arrived as a Powell's Indiespensable selection. The story is a lighthearted, absurd tale of Nita/Sniffles, a woman trying to make ends meet working as a clown while dealing with a dysfunctional long-distance relationship, a lecherous ex-boyfriend landlord and his vindictive girlfriend, an agent with none of her interests in mind, and a cop who conveniently reappears to save the day whenever Nita is picked up for theft/solicitation/disturbing the peace/arson/etc.
The story was cute, entertaining, a quick read, and sometimes amusing. These qualities somewhat redeemed the book's flaws. Some of the other reviewers' criticisms don't bother me about the book: true, Nita isn't always likeable, and I rolled my eyes at her pining for loser Rex (and was actually expecting some more entertainingly awful revelations about what he'd been up to while "at clown college"), but there have been great books with unlikeable main characters since the Iliad.
What did bother me: The author writes needily. She seems as desperate as the main character at times, whether from the overuse of "coulrophile" (a word which needn't appear in ANY work of fiction more than about three times) or the too-obvious-to-be-plausible ways in which Nita makes her own situations worse whenever she's detained or arrested. Having Jerrod save the day in every situation is overused as a plot device. About 2/3 of the way in the story drags a bit, and Nita's scrapes begin to feel repetitive.
The story was cute, entertaining, a quick read, and sometimes amusing. These qualities somewhat redeemed the book's flaws. Some of the other reviewers' criticisms don't bother me about the book: true, Nita isn't always likeable, and I rolled my eyes at her pining for loser Rex (and was actually expecting some more entertainingly awful revelations about what he'd been up to while "at clown college"), but there have been great books with unlikeable main characters since the Iliad.
What did bother me: The author writes needily. She seems as desperate as the main character at times, whether from the overuse of "coulrophile" (a word which needn't appear in ANY work of fiction more than about three times) or the too-obvious-to-be-plausible ways in which Nita makes her own situations worse whenever she's detained or arrested. Having Jerrod save the day in every situation is overused as a plot device. About 2/3 of the way in the story drags a bit, and Nita's scrapes begin to feel repetitive.
dnf
June 11, 2018Abandoned this about half way though. Such surrealism in novels just doesn't seem to work for me. I had no incentive to finish this to find out what happens, as I wasn't really sure what was happening as I was reading it. Such an intriguing premise, and I was enjoying it initially, but the weirdness just started to drain my attention. It was all a bit much, and none of it was written in a way that I thought was particularly special. Still really interested in picking up this authors short story collection. Didn't see much point in continuing with this wacky novel though. Not a bad book, just not doing much for me right now.
May 2, 2008
Monica Drake did write a book, get Chuck Palahniuk to write an introduction, and find a publisher. That's more than I’ve ever done. I’ll give her that. But she didn’t hold my attention, arouse my sympathies, or teach me anything. The characters were extremely flat despite their many layers of thick clown makeup and their occasional juggling-turned-arson mishaps. Drake tries desperately hard to be quirky and cool, but the book is rather boring and completely unsatisfying in terms of language, character, setting, or plot.
January 12, 2022
I turned to this book because I actually spent a lot of time in the clown world and wanted to see how a novel about clowns would play out. What Monica Drake has made is a very accurate to the weirdness that is clown world.
When one trains in physical comedy, the practice becomes innate in your movements and thinking. Drakes word-play reflects this. And as good physical comedy performance takes elements of the ordinary world and to reveal how they are actually extraordinary, ClownGirl does the same.
Painful and poignant at times, but such is life non?
When one trains in physical comedy, the practice becomes innate in your movements and thinking. Drakes word-play reflects this. And as good physical comedy performance takes elements of the ordinary world and to reveal how they are actually extraordinary, ClownGirl does the same.
Painful and poignant at times, but such is life non?
December 26, 2008
This book, by a new novelist, sends the reader on a strange trip through Baloneytown, a section of an unamed city peopled by offbeat characters. The writing style is colorful, descriptive, action-based even when the protaganist is thinking about what she's going to do. Lots of angst, lots of symbolism, sorrow, laughter, you name it. Highly recommended, especially for people interested in writing and examining writing styles. Forward by Chuck Palahaniuk sets up the reader for a fun time.
Read
May 24, 2022hmmmmmmmmmmmm not sure yet
May 21, 2008
This book was so disappointing.
Only a few ideas repeated over and over pointlessly: the clown ethics, how I miss my boyfriend, sickness. Once you get into the schema, you can tell 10 pages in advance what is going to happen - oh yes now she's going to get into troubles with that. It tries to be grotesque but there's not a good laugh in the whole book, nor a surprise, a strong emotion, or a tragedy. The fake ass and breasts can be funny at first, but after the image is repeated 30 times in the same chapter(!!!) it's no fun anymore - just a waste of paper. I also couldn't feel any empathy for the main character - in fact I found her just stupid and irritating. Dialogues are soo poor - the same level of a soap opera.
Too bad because there's some good writing here and there. I only hope Monica Drake wasn't trying to write a more contemporary, female version of Heinrich Boll "The Clown". If that was the case she has a long, long way to go.
As for Chuck Palahniuk - next time he'll recommend a book I'll stay clear of it.
Only a few ideas repeated over and over pointlessly: the clown ethics, how I miss my boyfriend, sickness. Once you get into the schema, you can tell 10 pages in advance what is going to happen - oh yes now she's going to get into troubles with that. It tries to be grotesque but there's not a good laugh in the whole book, nor a surprise, a strong emotion, or a tragedy. The fake ass and breasts can be funny at first, but after the image is repeated 30 times in the same chapter(!!!) it's no fun anymore - just a waste of paper. I also couldn't feel any empathy for the main character - in fact I found her just stupid and irritating. Dialogues are soo poor - the same level of a soap opera.
Too bad because there's some good writing here and there. I only hope Monica Drake wasn't trying to write a more contemporary, female version of Heinrich Boll "The Clown". If that was the case she has a long, long way to go.
As for Chuck Palahniuk - next time he'll recommend a book I'll stay clear of it.
August 21, 2008
I found myself thinking about Confederacy of Dunces about 1/4 of the way through this book. That's not a good thing, either; I hated Confederacy of Dunces. Although there are no overt parallels between Nita and Ignatius, both continued their string of self-defeating screw-ups long past the point of wearing thin. As far as I'm concerned, Nita and Ignatius will be forever labeled the most incredibly, mind-blowingly, tragically annoying characters in contemporary literature.
Yes, they're that bad.
In the end, enough of the story wrapped up to warrant three stars. Unlike other reviewers, I did not think this book was written in an amateur fashion. The story, not the writing, is what annoyed me. (Chuckie should seriously reconsider his glowing endorsement, though. His jealously is completely unwarranted.) And even though I gave the book three stars, I have no idea to whom I would recommend this book.
Wow.
Yes, they're that bad.
In the end, enough of the story wrapped up to warrant three stars. Unlike other reviewers, I did not think this book was written in an amateur fashion. The story, not the writing, is what annoyed me. (Chuckie should seriously reconsider his glowing endorsement, though. His jealously is completely unwarranted.) And even though I gave the book three stars, I have no idea to whom I would recommend this book.
Wow.
October 10, 2021
Went into this with no expectations after being given it by a friend when I was perusing her bookshelf.... though it's been recommended by Chuck Palaniuk and other authors, so in some circles it's been spoken about a lot. From the synopsis I thought it would be a lot sillier, surreal and far fetched than what it turned out to be, whilst what it's really dealing with is persona; what we wear and how we identify. I can't say it's the best book I've ever read but it's okay, and better than average, and can see why people might rate it lowly if they'd heard from their favourite writers that it's the best thing ever.
September 24, 2017
To be honest I wasn't too crazy about Clown Girl. I didn't like the writing style or the characters. I felt quite alienated. However the premise is interesting and there are some funny bits. Disappointing imo.
May 12, 2019
Much to amuse, but in the end the promise of hyper-realistic clownishness as an analogy for life and love isn't kept. 10 out of 10 for difficulty & vision 7 out of 10 for execution. Extra points for the shout-out for William Claude Dunkenfield.
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