It’s meticulously researched, and some of the descriptions made me nauseated enough that I had to put the book down to read something else for a little while — but there’s still something irritating about …

The book is good — Styron’s prose is outstanding — but it’s too long; I like the movie better, because Styron does tend to get into sidebars that don’t feel necessary to the story, and …

The writing is both very precise and wildly overwrought, particularly the dialogue, which…my God, even a Lassie episode is closer to how kids really  talk, and the father’s lengthy pontificating in the library was just …

Very sharp and funny, particularly the extremely dry and long overdue takedown of Susan Sontag. (9/8/03)

A lovely…what’s the term I want here?   “Memoir of the transgender experience,” I guess.   In any case, funny and touching in just the right balance, and beautifully written.   (9/8/03)

The prose is a little bit clumsy, but if you like media studies, it’s a fab read in an election year.   Grab a copy if you can.   My newest favorite political joke: “I’d …

The editor made a big thing out of not including “The Necklace,” which I think is a mistake; it’s probably his strongest story.   These are good, but it took me a while to get …

Hilaaaaaarious.   A group of people sitting around making catty comments about various movies is sometimes hard to translate to the page, but Hensley does a great job with it.   His friend Tony and …

Read it in one day.   It’s sort of a Sedaris/Mary Karr hybrid, but that’s not a bad thing, and it’s not derivative, I didn’t think, although it might seem like I thought that.   …

Probably the best written of the S.E. Hintons, but with the least likable characters.   Rusty-James is a straight-up jackass.