Reviews

Cruddy by Lynda Barry

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hungrybookclub's review

emotional funny fast-paced

After being grounded for dropping acid, Roberta begins to write her short, yet remarkable life story. The story is one of theft, murder, mayhem, and lots of blood. The book cycles between the present where Roberta is a fairly average teenager, although with a difficult home life exacerbated drugs given to her by some less than great friends, and a time past when Roberta drove through the country with "The Father" on a bloody quest to recover his family fortune.

Robert is one of my favorite unreliable narrators. I'm still not sure, even after a second reading if she's really telling the truth.

briegle's review

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4.0

I don't usually read dark books like this. Maybe that's why I enjoyed it so much - it was so unusual and unique that I was instantly drawn in.

curleyreads's review

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5.0

I loved this book. Lynda Barry has incredible talent -- and by that I mean that in the course of reading this book you completely forget someone named Lynda Barry wrote these words, or that this is a novel at all: I was seriously lost in the story that Roberta Rohbeson, our narrator, was telling me. Every bit of it seemed "real," visceral, authentic, even as the events grew increasingly horrifying and ultraviolent. I'm sure you could read this book as a metaphor about gender, violence, fathers, patriarchy, and perhaps that's why it felt so believable no matter what unfolded. But its real power lies in how honest each detail felt -- vulnerable and un-self-pitying. This narrator will stay with me for a long time.