Dave Eggers Books: The Wild Things Review

As promised (much, much earlier), I have written the end of my review of The Wild Things by Dave Eggers. And I'm not going to lie, this is not Dave Eggers's best work. Sorry dude. At first, I was amused by his cutesy style and engulfed in his ability to make a personality leap off of a page, but I felt that the lead character fell flat. This was especially disappointing because the character was a child, and I was really hoping for something a little more moving. I just came off of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer, after which I was stunned, and was yearning for more content centered around the honest sensitivities of a child. However, I felt that Eggers, in an effort to be funny, highlighted the childish actions of the characters too often instead of making their actions show the emotional connections.

I essentially skimmed the end of it simply because I wanted to know what happened. I got bored quickly and just figured out the plot line to get as far as I could before not being able to pay attention. There were some scenes that I found interesting, but not necessarily in a positive way. I call them interesting because they caused me to read more closely, though, not because I liked them. In fact, I did not like them, and some of them made me uncomfortable. There were a few scenes which were too gruesome, but I guess I asked for it because it is a story about monsters. However, there are some scenes - one scene in particular between two of the monsters who seems to be together - by which I felt offended knowing that I was reading a children's story. I had to read that scene twice to be sure that it said what I thought it said, and sure enough, it included sexual undertones. That was not the only scene which created that atmosphere, either, and I felt that they were gratuitous and perhaps a little bit self-serving.

Anyway, as I did for the beginning, I give Eggers a lot of credit for the end. I read the back again when I got toward the end since I was unsure of where the story was going anymore after the sexual scenes threw me for a loop. I figured out that the story was about a child experiencing love and hate, and I felt a tad gypped until the last few pages. Eggers was required to show love and hate in a child's world all at the same time, and in his closing scenes, he delivered. So bravo for that but I'm upset that I had to read everything else to get there.