Pager turner: 8/10
Heart tugger: 7/10
Thought provoker: 9/10
Overall: 5 stars
Readability: 5 stars

A Visit from the Goon Squad is fab. It’s a good read. An award-winning book that I read that I would periodically would forget was award winning. Which (perversely?) is a good thing. I think.

Jennifer Egan’s writing style for Goon is just so solid. And unpretentious. The book doesn’t have any of that slightly nose-in-the-air *worthy* feeling that so many others on this list seem to. It was refreshing, as well as just awesome.

I could describe this book a being ‘about’ sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Or I could describe it (somewhat more loftily) as about time. Either would be accurate, and you can read the book on either level and enjoy it.

A Visit from the Good Squad is sort-of like Love Actually meets Sliding Doors meets six degrees of separation … in the fourth dimension. One chapter kicks off with a character from the last, but you don’t know which character and you don’t know at what point in his/her life. It bounces around. And it is interesting if you read each chapter on its own, but it Makes Sense if you read them together, and are paying a bit of attention. Of course the lives of the characters interweave in mundane and meaningful ways. And of course the characters themselves are flawed, human, loveable, and frustrating.

Did I mention there is a whole chapter told from the point of view of a 12-year-old who keeps a powerpoint diary? Amazing. Resonant. Fun.

Read it.