A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

This was definitely a challenging book. At times I felt like I was reading my own life recorded by someone else. The thoughts that the main character (the author) was having were often the same as the ones that I experienced in similar situations. At other times, though, Dave was the last person with whom I wanted to identify. This book is a recount of Dave's life through his early to mid twenties. His parents both die within a month of each other, and he is forced to take care of his seven-year-old brother. Some of the best parts of the book relate instances where he is trying to be a good "parent," but he cannot shake the fact that he's only twenty-two years old. Eggers probes some very taboo topics, such as the pathetic image of one attempting to throw his mother's ashes into an ocean while a stiff breeze makes it nearly impossible, but he always addresses them with an air of biting realism. This book is definitely a must-read for all people in their twenties. Eggers masterfully embodies the whole spirit of our generation in the book with the strange title. The strangest part is that the title is eerily accurate.