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Plan B: A Novel
vBulletin Book Store > vBulletin books beginning with P
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Plan B: A Novel |
Author: Jonathan Tropper
Published: 2001-02-04 |
List price: $14.95
Our price: $10.17
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As of: December 02nd, 2008 03:39:44 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 another please
Yet another great book by Tropper:-) If you like his stuff you will love this book. Kind of crazy but soooooo good.
 Cliched characters, absurd scenarios
Nothing in Jonathan Tropper's debut novel, "Plan B," worked for me. The characters reminded me of one of those awful "dramedies" that regularly appears and disappears on T.V.: a group of college friends consisting of the beautiful but somewhat unapproachable girl, the just as beautiful but vulnerable girl, the suave doctor (formerly an unnoticed fat kid) who's magically irresistable to women; the handsome successful actor with a raging cocaine habit, and the friendly wannabe author (so much, I suspect, like Tropper himself). As is always the case in stories such as these, there's the ever present sexual tension within the group and, of course, the inevitable hook-ups. Between the ridiculously stilted dialogue and the feeble attempt to create a "we can get through this together" type atmosphere, "Plan B" fails on almost every conceivable level.
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br /I should mention though that I enjoyed Tropper's second novel, "The Book of Joe," much more. It's a good thing that I read "Joe" first, because if "Plan B" had been my first Tropper novel, it would have also been my last.
 An enjoyable and heartwarming read about love and friendship in your 30s
I read Tropper's books slightly out of order, as I had read Everything Changes and The Book of Joe before coming around full circle to read his first novel, Plan B. I enjoyed this novel immensely...being a women on the verge of my third decade, it's refreshing to see some of my own personal issues in an interesting and entertaining story. If you've enjoyed his other novels, you will enjoy this one.
 Thirty....
As someone who's approaching thirty myself, I picked up this book because 1) it looked funny and 2) I need to laugh about turning thirty so I don't freak out. Because, like the narrator, I still feel like nineteen wasn't so long ago.
br /However, aside from a few witty observations about what it means to actually be thirty (my favorite was the one about friends being like bone mass, even though I don't think it's true at all), I didn't much care for the book. It's a story of friendship--four friends, whose lives are pretty much stagnant, have decided to stage an intervention to reclaim their fifth friend, a coke-addicted movie star. The problem is not so much the implausible plot as the characters themselves. I didn't really care much about any of them--except the poor kid next door, Jeremy. They were all so self-absorbed, so wrapped up in...well, I'm not sure what they were wrapped up in, unless it was a hopeless aspiration to recapture their lost youth. And Ben keeps waxing lyrical about how talking to Jeremy makes him feel like a grown-up...I just want to shake him. News Flash, Ben: You are an adult, and have been one for about nine years! Get over yourself. Find something you can be passionate about. Then DO it, and stop whining!
Sitcom
The main characters are five New York University graduates. It's a blend of bildungsroman and television sitcom, full of reverential references to pop culture. Ben, the first person narrator is having a premature midlife crisis because of being 30 and not having written the great American novel. That's the coming-of-age part. The other part is an implausible caper in which they kidnap their friend, Jack, who has become a famous actor, in order to rehabilitate him from his drug habit.
br / Humor is lacking all the more conspicuously because it is attempted. A feeble witticism is described as "prompting another round of chuckles" and at one point "we had to laugh in spite of everything at the absurdity of the whole situation" - well I didn't. It's as if the author's holding up a sign for the audience saying "laughter."
br / There are some nice descriptions of Catskills scenery, but much of the scene-setting and prose style is of the order of "The aroma of eggs and coffee came floating in from the kitchen and I realized I was starving."
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