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kerryanndunn's review against another edition
4.0
I'm a sucker for pop culture. Insane amounts of inane pop culture trivia swirls continuously through my brain. It's only natural then, that I would adore anything filled with a plethora of pop culture references for me to cry, "Yes! Hey, I get that reference!" I miss TV's The Gilmore Girls.
Greg Olear's Totally Killer satisfied my pop culture proclivities in abundance. It takes place in 1991, the year I turned 15, so although I'm a bit younger than the main characters in the novel, I still related to it. Any book that can reference Parliament Lights (which was my brand of choice back when I was still a smoker), Alec Baldwin in The Marrying Man, Sassy magazine (oh how I miss it!), as well as the amazing music of that time possesses the key to my heart.
Aside from all that, this book is a darkly comic look at Baby Boomers vs. Generation X, written as a noirish mystery featuring well drawn characters with imagery that perfectly evokes NYC in 1991 (even for those like me that have never been there). It's easy and fun to read, with a great plot twist that I truly didn't see coming. I love a novel that surprises me.
I'd recommend this to everyone. Especially anyone who came of age in the 90s.
Greg Olear's Totally Killer satisfied my pop culture proclivities in abundance. It takes place in 1991, the year I turned 15, so although I'm a bit younger than the main characters in the novel, I still related to it. Any book that can reference Parliament Lights (which was my brand of choice back when I was still a smoker), Alec Baldwin in The Marrying Man, Sassy magazine (oh how I miss it!), as well as the amazing music of that time possesses the key to my heart.
Aside from all that, this book is a darkly comic look at Baby Boomers vs. Generation X, written as a noirish mystery featuring well drawn characters with imagery that perfectly evokes NYC in 1991 (even for those like me that have never been there). It's easy and fun to read, with a great plot twist that I truly didn't see coming. I love a novel that surprises me.
I'd recommend this to everyone. Especially anyone who came of age in the 90s.
jakewritesbooks's review against another edition
3.0
So much to like and dislike of Greg Olear's debut novel. The positives: dialogue, the atmosphere (early 90s NYC done well), the story and especially the end. I wish the book had focused on where it ended more than most of the narrative. Which leads to the negatives: annoyingly forced pop culture references, stilted character development (can't say more w/o giving away the plot) and an obnoxiously cloying love angle (it's like the author can't go three pages without some sort of "Taylor, I want you!" quote). There was enough there to keep me plowing through and I am willing to write some of the negatives off as first book issues. I see that the author's next novel received excellent reviews and I might check it out at some point.
gingerfoot's review against another edition
2.0
I think my expectations were too high with this book.
jodiwilldare's review
2.0
I picked up Totally Killer by Greg Olear because of the cassette on the cover, which I spied on his Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay. There’s something in my genetic makeup that makes it nearly impossible for me to pass up any book with a cassette tape on the cover. Somewhere buried deep in my subconscious is the girl who spend all Sunday taping her favorite songs off America’s Top 40 countdown, and apparently she’s the on in charge of book selections.
I stuck with the book despite my extreme annoyance because it’s the November pick for Rock & Roll Bookclub.
As a reader, I rarely question an author’s Point of View (POV) choices. I figure it’s their story they can tell it how they want to. However, this is not the case with Totally Killer. In fact, I spent the first half of the book so annoyed by Olear’s POV choice that I nearly abandoned it. I’m kind of glad that I didn’t.
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I stuck with the book despite my extreme annoyance because it’s the November pick for Rock & Roll Bookclub.
As a reader, I rarely question an author’s Point of View (POV) choices. I figure it’s their story they can tell it how they want to. However, this is not the case with Totally Killer. In fact, I spent the first half of the book so annoyed by Olear’s POV choice that I nearly abandoned it. I’m kind of glad that I didn’t.
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