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alliebookworm's review against another edition
2.0
I'll start off by saying I didn't get it. I didn't mind the ride, but I didn't get the book as a whole. It needed a lot more contemplation than I felt like giving it. What definitely helped was that I went into it knowing it would be a very strange read. I was prepared and I was able to go along for the ride. It's definitely written in a very poetic and almost caressing style. I've never read a book before that felt like the main character's point of view was separated from the world by a layer of gauze.
greggmpls's review against another edition
4.0
I won this book in a Goodreads First Reads Give Away.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. The story is intelligent and dark, with layers of complexity and some withering sarcasm. The author uses wonderfully descriptive language to say a great deal in such a short novel.
The back cover offers a review by Lydia Millet that describes "You Were Wrong" as a hybrid of a P.G. Wodehouse social farce and the bitter wit of John Kennedy Toole. I have read P.G. Wodehouse as well as "A Confederacy of Dunces" and "The Neon Bible" by J.K. Toole. I found that "You Were Wrong" is closer to Toole than Woodehouse. Karl, like Ignatius, uses his bedroom as a sanctuary against the difficulties of living in the world for extended periods. Karl does not share the same eccentricities as Ignatius nor does he rise to the same level of outrageousness.
I recommend this book.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. The story is intelligent and dark, with layers of complexity and some withering sarcasm. The author uses wonderfully descriptive language to say a great deal in such a short novel.
The back cover offers a review by Lydia Millet that describes "You Were Wrong" as a hybrid of a P.G. Wodehouse social farce and the bitter wit of John Kennedy Toole. I have read P.G. Wodehouse as well as "A Confederacy of Dunces" and "The Neon Bible" by J.K. Toole. I found that "You Were Wrong" is closer to Toole than Woodehouse. Karl, like Ignatius, uses his bedroom as a sanctuary against the difficulties of living in the world for extended periods. Karl does not share the same eccentricities as Ignatius nor does he rise to the same level of outrageousness.
I recommend this book.
unsquare's review against another edition
1.0
Full disclosure: I received a review copy of this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
You Were Wrong is a short book, but manages to wear out its welcome in no time at all. I was ready to throw it against the wall after two chapters, but forced myself to continue reading so that I could finish and give it a fair review. The good news is that I got used to the writing style after a few more chapters, but the bad news is that I think that may have just been Stockholm Syndrome in action.
The main character, Karl Floor, is a sad-sack twenty-something math teacher who shares his dead mother’s house with his hateful stepfather. When the book opens, Karl is beaten up by two of his students, only to stumble home and discover that his house is apparently being robbed by the beautiful and mysterious Sylvia Vetch. Sylvia doesn’t act like a normal robber, however, and tends to Karl’s wounds before taking him on a journey across town to the house where she lives. As Karl’s life becomes intertwined with Sylvia and her circle, he wanders aimlessly through a series of mysterious encounters with people who abuse and confuse him. Karl is entirely passive by nature, and spends most of the book whining, getting dragged along against his will, or just plain lying down and passing out.
The book feels a bit more like a series of rambling vignettes than a novel. There is the slightest hint of a mystery concerning Sylvia’s real motivations, and the story almost swerves into crime fiction at one point before course-correcting, but mostly it’s a shambling collection of long-winded character studies. Sharpe describes the most mundane of things in excruciating detail, often employing digressions within digressions that bloat single sentences into page-long tangents. Characters don’t speak like actual human beings; either they monologue for pages about vaguely related matters, or they utter terse exchanges full of thudding importance and implied mystery.
The best I can say about the book is that Sharpe occasionally pulls off a fine turn of phrase or throws in a decent joke. For the most part, however, I found it both overwritten and crashingly dull, and was glad to see the back of it.
You Were Wrong is a short book, but manages to wear out its welcome in no time at all. I was ready to throw it against the wall after two chapters, but forced myself to continue reading so that I could finish and give it a fair review. The good news is that I got used to the writing style after a few more chapters, but the bad news is that I think that may have just been Stockholm Syndrome in action.
The main character, Karl Floor, is a sad-sack twenty-something math teacher who shares his dead mother’s house with his hateful stepfather. When the book opens, Karl is beaten up by two of his students, only to stumble home and discover that his house is apparently being robbed by the beautiful and mysterious Sylvia Vetch. Sylvia doesn’t act like a normal robber, however, and tends to Karl’s wounds before taking him on a journey across town to the house where she lives. As Karl’s life becomes intertwined with Sylvia and her circle, he wanders aimlessly through a series of mysterious encounters with people who abuse and confuse him. Karl is entirely passive by nature, and spends most of the book whining, getting dragged along against his will, or just plain lying down and passing out.
The book feels a bit more like a series of rambling vignettes than a novel. There is the slightest hint of a mystery concerning Sylvia’s real motivations, and the story almost swerves into crime fiction at one point before course-correcting, but mostly it’s a shambling collection of long-winded character studies. Sharpe describes the most mundane of things in excruciating detail, often employing digressions within digressions that bloat single sentences into page-long tangents. Characters don’t speak like actual human beings; either they monologue for pages about vaguely related matters, or they utter terse exchanges full of thudding importance and implied mystery.
The best I can say about the book is that Sharpe occasionally pulls off a fine turn of phrase or throws in a decent joke. For the most part, however, I found it both overwritten and crashingly dull, and was glad to see the back of it.
mattmatros's review against another edition
2.0
This needed to be workshopped a whole lot more. As it is, it reads like a mess of a first draft. I don't recommend this novel unless you're missing your days of attending film major's thesis screenings, or unless you're typically on something when you read.
kylegarvey's review against another edition
4.0
A sad, self-reflective dweeb for a narrator, thrown through a weird conspiracy/shenanigan circus. Sharpe is quicker and shorter than David Foster Wallace, more modern than Thomas Pynchon, but like both of them he loves long, elaborate, clever sentences.
Karl Floor, a math teacher (who's beaten up by two of his students) persists in sad, devastating, quirky philosophizing (all in grim but hilarious existential malaise), not as funny as it thinks it is but funnier than nothing: "most of Karl’s suffering was mild, but there was so much of it that his two hundred mild sufferings a day were the equivalent of another man’s one horrifying suffering a day."
Death to him is passed off -- obliquely, with a so-tiny-it's-funny ceremony -- as "one less Volvo on the road", which (less/fewer confusion, I'm sure authentic to Karl, notwithstanding) is just about the funniest death-related clause I've ever read.
Karl's mother Belinda has been dead for a while, but her will requested Karl stay at her house and care for her husband, his stepfather, for a long period. Larchmont Jones is annoyingly verbose and mealy-mouthed and so mature and interesting and awesome. It's a beautiful match and good for a few, short LOLs.
Karl eventually falls in with Sylvia Vetch (a beautiful woman), Stony (a weird surfer dude), and others. And a whole very strange comic drama unravels, about race and identity and surprise.
Karl Floor, a math teacher (who's beaten up by two of his students) persists in sad, devastating, quirky philosophizing (all in grim but hilarious existential malaise), not as funny as it thinks it is but funnier than nothing: "most of Karl’s suffering was mild, but there was so much of it that his two hundred mild sufferings a day were the equivalent of another man’s one horrifying suffering a day."
Death to him is passed off -- obliquely, with a so-tiny-it's-funny ceremony -- as "one less Volvo on the road", which (less/fewer confusion, I'm sure authentic to Karl, notwithstanding) is just about the funniest death-related clause I've ever read.
Karl's mother Belinda has been dead for a while, but her will requested Karl stay at her house and care for her husband, his stepfather, for a long period. Larchmont Jones is annoyingly verbose and mealy-mouthed and so mature and interesting and awesome. It's a beautiful match and good for a few, short LOLs.
Karl eventually falls in with Sylvia Vetch (a beautiful woman), Stony (a weird surfer dude), and others. And a whole very strange comic drama unravels, about race and identity and surprise.
ellaep's review
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I love being confused from beginning to end, so this book was perfect for me. The character perspective of the story made it feel as though both the main character and the story were slowly unravelling, leading to parts that feel as though they don't fit into the book. If this was intentional, it was very well done. If it wasn't, I don't care I still liked it.
margardenlady's review
2.0
This has an interesting story line, a few twists and turns along the way and the author is able to pull together incongruous concepts to juxtapose ideas in an extremely novel way. These glimmers of brilliance are made recondite by the profusion of words, followed by clause after clause of cacophonous phrases, the best descriptor for the novel is abstruse, the key elements enshrined in a plethora of cynical commentary so turbid as to be occluded. Character motivations were nearly opaque throughout, with the possible exception of Karl's motivation to sleep which is consistently emphasized to the greatest extent.
lil's review
1.0
Did not like this book. Don't have anything more to add. Oh, wait, there is one more thing for just about every character and situation, my thought was, "who cares?"
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