Adverbs

In a novel too clever for its own good, Daniel Handler, who also writes as Lemony Snicket, explores a big topic: love between people and love between people and the universe. The odd collection of vignettes jumps from one chapter to another and from one set of characters to another, all or none of whom may be related. Oliver Wyman captures the quirkiness of the story line, using flawless timing to highlight every comic nuance and a masterfully light touch on the many confusing characters. Nonetheless, while Handler shows creative genius writing as Snicket, this effort proves to be a series of unfortunate events. R.L.L. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

Starred review from January 30, 2006
The qualities that draw millions to Lemony Snicket—absurdity, wicked humor, a love of wordplay—get adulterated in this elegant exploration of love. Handler brings linguistic pyrotechnics to a set of encounters: gay, straight, platonic and all degrees of dysfunctional. Amid the deadpan ("Character description: Appropriately tall. Could dress better.") and the exhausting ("Love was in the air, so both of us walked through love on our way to the corner.") are moments of blithe poignancy: quoth a lone golfer, "Love is this sudden crash in your path, quick and to the point, and nearly always it leaves someone slain on the green." In "Obviously," a teenage boy pines for his co-worker at the multiplex while they both tear tickets for Kickass: The Movie
. In "Briefly," the narrator, now married, recounts being 14 and infatuated with his big sister's boyfriend, Keith. "Truly" begins "This part's true," and features a character named Daniel Handler, who has an exchange about miracles with a novelist named Paula Sharp. Handler began his career with the coming-of-age novel The Basic Eight
; this lovely, lilting book is a kind of After School Special for adults that dramatizes love's cross-purposes with panache: "Surely somebody will arrive, in a taxi perhaps, attractively, artfully, aggressively, or any other way it is done."

April 3, 2006
In 17 intricately linked short stories, Handler brings to life a vivid group of young San Franciscans who are all at some point of falling in or out of love. There's the petulant, jealous yet somehow endearing Helena, a British woman who's followed her husband to America; there's Lila, who breaks her fellow movie-theater ticket-taker's heart even as her own body is shut down with a rare disease; and Keith, once Lila's insensitive boyfriend and later a comic book artist. Some characters show up frequently while others are just walk-ons, but the collection develops as a whole, with the same jokes and anecdotes and snippets of song lyrics or dialogue interwoven throughout with Handler's characteristic metaliterary style. Wyman does an excellent job with the characters' various accents, and he has mastered Handler's ironic tone. However, listeners trying to follow all the story threads may wish they had a print copy of the book to better enjoy Handler's wit and creativity in crafting this collection of fascinating lives.

July 17, 2006
In 17 intricately linked short stories, Handler brings to life a vivid group of young San Franciscans who are all at some point of falling in or out of love. There's the petulant, jealous yet somehow endearing Helena, a British woman who's followed her husband to America; there's Lila, who breaks her fellow movie-theater ticket-taker's heart even as her own body is shut down with a rare disease; and Keith, once Lila's insensitive boyfriend and later a comic book artist. Some characters show up frequently while others are just walk-ons, but the collection develops as a whole, with the same jokes and anecdotes and snippets of song lyrics or dialogue interwoven throughout with Handler's characteristic metaliterary style. Wyman does an excellent job with the characters' various accents, and he has mastered Handler's ironic tone. However, listeners trying to follow all the story threads may wish they had a print copy of the book to better enjoy Handler's wit and creativity in crafting this collection of fascinating lives.

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.