Reviews
The fellowship of Lionel Shriver fanatics is about to grow larger, so to speak. Big Brother , a tragicomic meditation on family and food, may be her best book yet., The ever-caustic Shriver has great fun at the expense of crash diets and a host of other sacred pop-culture, er, cows. Politically correct it's not, but Big Brother finds the funny - and the pathos - in fat., What would you do for love of a brother? For love of a husband? For love of food? In Big Brother , Shriver's new and wonderfully timely novel, her heroine wrestles with these vexing questions. Only the scales don't lie., Brilliantly imagined, beautifully written, and superbly entertaining, Shriver's novel confronts readers with the decisive question: can we save our loved ones from themselves? A must-read for Shriver fans, this novel will win over new readers as well., Her [Shriver's] best work-- Big Brother is her twelfth novel--presents characters so fully formed that they inhabit her ideas rather than trumpet them., The moving (and shocking) finale will have you thinking about the 'byzantine emotional mathematics' we all put ourselves through when overwhelmed with family responsibilities., Shriver is brilliant on the novel shock that is hunger. . . . Most of all, though, there's her glorious, fearless, almost fanatically hard-working prose., 'A searing, addictive novel about the power and limitations of food, family, success, and desire. Shriver examines America's weight obsession with both razor-sharp insight and compassion.' (J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Maine and Commencement ), (A) delicious, highly readable novel . . . (which) raises challenging questions about how much a loving person can give to another without sacrificing his or her own well-being., Would I recommend Big Brother ? Absolutely. It confronts the touchy subject of American lard exuberantly and intelligently; it makes you think about what you put in your mouth and why., The latest compelling, humane and bleakly comic novel from the author of We Need to Talk about Kevin ., Shriver brilliantly explores the strength of sibling bonds versus the often more fragile ties of marriage., As a writer, Shriver's talents are many: She's especially skilled at playing with readers's reflexes for sympathy and revulsion, never letting us get too comfortable with whatever firm understanding we think we have of a character., [Shriver] has a knack for conveying subtle shifts in family dynamics. . . . Ms Shriver offers some sage observations. . . . Yet her main gift as a novelist is a talent for coolly nailing down uncomfortable realities., The diet - the story of a heroically undertaken significant change - is pretty nearly irresistible. But what really powers this story, an outsize look at the most basic of human activities, eating, is a search for the definition, and appreciation, of 'ordinary life.', A great plot setup that presents an array of targets for Shriver to obliterate with her knife-sharp prose., A searing, addictive novel about the power and limitations of food, family, success, and desire. Shriver examines America's weight obsession with both razor-sharp insight and compassion., Lionel Shriver's Big Brother has the muscle to overpower its readers. It is a conversation piece of impressive heft., An Intelligent Meditation on Food, Guilt, and the Real (And Imagined) Debts We Owe the Ones We Love., Big Brother is vintage Shriver - observant, unsettling, funny, but also, as Pandora admits, 'Very, very sad.'