{"id":289,"date":"2021-06-20T16:10:11","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T16:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/?p=289"},"modified":"2021-06-20T16:10:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T16:10:11","slug":"a-visit-from-people-youd-rather-not-spend-any-time-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/20\/a-visit-from-people-youd-rather-not-spend-any-time-with\/","title":{"rendered":"A visit from people you&#8217;d rather not spend any time with"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Goon.jpg?resize=236%2C356&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Book cover for A Visit From The Goon Squad\" class=\"wp-image-290\" width=\"236\" height=\"356\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Goon.jpg?w=314&amp;ssl=1 314w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Goon.jpg?resize=198%2C300&amp;ssl=1 198w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 236px) 100vw, 236px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/7331435-a-visit-from-the-goon-squad\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/7331435-a-visit-from-the-goon-squad\">A Visit from the Goon Squad<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/49625.Jennifer_Egan\">Jennifer Egan<\/a><br><br>My rating: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/show\/4065193707\">2 of 5 stars<\/a><br><br><br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/7331435.A_Visit_from_the_Goon_Squad\">A Visit from the Goon Squad<\/a> is a series of connected stories centered around a record company executive and his assistant. It won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and is something of a work of writing bravado, shifting between characters and jumping back and forth in time. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/49625.Jennifer_Egan\">Jennifer Egan<\/a> has a sure hand, and I particularly appreciated the moments she jumped far forward in time to tell you what happens to people in the future.<br><br>I found little else to like in this book, though, and wound up skimming and skipping ahead when I was a bit more than halfway through. I just didn&#8217;t care what happened to any of the characters, and didn&#8217;t feel there were really any insights into human nature other than that self-destructive people tend to, well, destruct. Time goes on and beats you up as you age. Okay, I get it.<br><br>I know some people love this kind of thing, but stories that are mostly about people who feel sorry for themselves just don&#8217;t hold my attention. I would try another book by Egan because she does create vivid characters and write well, but I just didn&#8217;t want to spend any more time with these people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan My rating: 2 of 5 stars A Visit from the Goon Squad is a series of connected stories centered around a record company executive and his assistant. It won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and is something of a work of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paRPpr-4F","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions\/295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}