Name: Vernon God Little
Rating: 3.620689655172414 (29 reviews)
ISBN: 9780753171691

D. B. C. Pierre

Teenager Vernon Gregory Little's life has been changed by the Columbine-style slaughter of a group of students at his high school. Soon his home town is blanketed under a media siege, and Vernon finds himself blamed for the killing. Vernon finds himself drawn into a series of increasingly bizarre circumstances and decides to take off for Mexico and a date, with the delectable Taylor Figueros.

a 21st century comedy in the presence of death

Vernon God Little

D.B.C. Pierre

Erez Levinberg

I actually hated it at first, until up to about page 120, but after that I started to genuinely love it and I couldn't take it off my hands. Why do I think this is telling? Because I find it interesting that this book is really a love it or hate it one. Just look at all the reviews below, one star, or five, super polarised opinions. Inevitably I think this is a good thing, if you don't piss some people off with what you do than it's probably not that good. ("... all of the people can't be all right all of the time..."). Anyways, I in no way think that this book is perfect, one example of that is that just like I said, I think the narrative is not divided up well and that leads to an uninteresting or even incoherent beginning. But after the book settled in I not only found it very enjoyable, I also started to find literary gems in the dirty and chopped up vernacular language that is used, and that for me was the best part of the book, the way language is bent into something which at first seems a bit disorganised, but on a second glance just has a certain dirty perfectness to it sometimes. Apart from that I also think it is a poignant book with a sharp criticism on some of the workings of this world. Enjoy! (but get past the beginning :-) )

WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2003 WINNER OF THE 2003 WHITBREAD FIRST NOVEL PRIZE Named as one of the 100 Best Things in the World by GQ magazine in 2003, the riotous adventures of Vernon Gregory Little in small town Texas and beachfront Mexico mark one of the most spectacular, irreverent and bizarre debuts of the twenty-first century so far. Its depiction of innocence and simple humanity (all seasoned with a dash of dysfunctional profanity) in an evil world is never less than astonishing. The only novel to be set in the barbecue sauce capital of Central Texas, Vernon God Little suggests that desperate times throw up the most unlikely of heroes. 'A showpiece of superb comic writing . . . Out of the detritus of a morally bankrupt society, Pierre has fashioned a work of comic art.' Sunday Telegraph 'In a just world, this ridiculously funny first novel would come free with every television set . . . Not since reading John Kennedy O'Toole's masterpiece, A Confederacy of Dunces . . . have I laughed so much or felt such sheer delight at the discovery of a wholly fresh comic voice . . . this novel reads like a modern day fairytale.' Mail on Sunday

A 21st Century Comedy in the Presence of Death

This  was such a wild ride. Three pages to the end I was screaming, stomping, and ready to throw the book across my room. Vernon is quite the interesting narrator,  the way he grows as he learns about his surroundings shines within his internal dialogue (powerdimes). Really fucken cool, really fucken disturbing, I hated so many people in this story like really!! Read this book if you want to be angry and upset for a couple of days.

Eli Alvah Huckabee

Rose Stanley

This was a quick read but difficult to review. Lots of unpleasantness (the plot is centred around a school shooting but there's also a LOT of paedophilia going on and a fair amount of scatological and other language that I found similarly unpleasant, plus none of the characters is particularly appealing, except maybe Jesus). I think if you can stomach the first three acts, the payoff in the last two is good. 

This book has been compared by a lot of reviewers to A Confederacy of Dunces...well, it's been 12 years since I read the latter and I genuinely remember nothing! Will have to reread both in order to decide which is the better piece.

Shantesh Patil

Initially it might be a little hard to get comfortable with the style of writing. Once I was a few pages in though I was pretty hooked. This is a funny, moving and uncomfortable read at times. It never shys away from anything. It's the thoughts of a teenager laid bare to greatest extent possible.

Vernon God Little a 21st century comedy in the presence of death

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