I love it -- I love that it seems to be a bit flippant, and light and breezy, and yet has these scenes that just kick you in the teeth with their emotions (Noel's diary about his mother is breathtaking). I appreciate that Moore just shows you these scenes, and he doesn't bash you over the head repeatedly with the despair and the doom and gloom. You get a quick kick, and then you're back to laughing.
The form of the text is keeping my interest -- its keeping me off balance, and ready to accept whatever he tosses at me.
I think its the best book we've read so far.

I enjoyed this book a lot and mainly because of the humor and how there aren't any real dark aspects to the novel. One part i found really interesting as being part of the text and on the way the book was written were the two diary entries from Noel and Samira. There was one section in the book where they both respond on the same situation but you see it from two different point of views. This enables you to see what the other is thinking about the other as well which is very unusual. For example Noel keeps saying how he never sees Samira anymore and how he was watching tv with his mom and reading to her and Samira would stand there for a second and hten leave like she didn't want to be there. In Samira's diary, she says that she hardly has seen Noel because she is really busy but those same instances Samira says she doesn't feel welcome and she feels that Noel wants to be alone and with his mom and gives her bad looks. It is interesting being on both sides of the characters.

I liked this book, but again I think I over analyzed it, which I think is what the author wants. I was trying to figure the bigger picture of the novel,or if it wasn't just playing around with form for the sake of playing around with form. I'm not sure exactly what all of the cleverness has added up to- besides being really sardonic and entertaining

I have had a little while to let the book sink in, and I'm looking over it again in preparation for the exam. I really enjoyed the disjointed narrative. At times I often forget that the book even had a narrator due to the numerous journals. I think what impressed me the most was Moore's ability to pull together so many textual references in the novel. This has two effects. It makes the reader "buy into the story" more, or believe it to be true, and second it rewards a well read audience. It would be nice to understand all of the references, but they few that I caught were rewarding

My copy never came in the mail from Amazon. I got a notice today that it was just shipped. I am totally annoyed; I should have planned better in advance but didn't realize that it couldn't be bought at B&N or Borders. Sorry everyone that I couldn't participate better in discussions.

I can't lie, when I wrote that other comment, I hadn't exactly, well, read more than twenty pages of the book. In retrospect, I should read a book before I write disparaging snooty remarks about it. I still think the cover is so stupid, but anyways...I found out that this book actually had alot of parallels regarding my own life (except the whole, "genius" and "memory" thing of course). I really related to the issues concerning the deterioration of a loved one, the powerlessness you feel, and the desire to take matters into your own hands when the resources, like modern medicine and pharmaceutics has failed you. I have definitely experienced that spite towards the arrogance and greed that consumes the medical industry and their dismissal of any remedy that they can't patent, as JJ notes.This book generated so many thoughts (despite the sometimes goofy self-referentiality) about the nature of art and creativity and memory; I saw alot of positive and negative parts of myself in the lives of these characters. So, I guess I take that first remark back.