What readers think of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, plus links to write your own review.

THIS BOOK WAS PACKED, WONDERFUL AND COMPELLING.

This is a nostalgic, sometimes whistful but always witty look at the world circa 1941 through the wide-eyes of two boy-genius comic book creators -- Sam Clay, a smart aleck from Brooklyn straight out of the "Bowery Boys" and his Czech cousin, Joseph Kavalier. Interweaving his fictional characters with real personalities of the era (Al Smith; Orson Welles; Salvadore Dali), Chabon's style is reminiscent of Doctorow's RAGTIME. Chabon creates endearing characters and gives them crackling dialogue to rival a Preston Sturgess film of the era. After finishing the 600+ pages I was still hungry for more adventures :-)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon, is one of the best novels of 2001 as shown by being the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001.The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is of the most weird books that I have read.

This book is an adventurous piece of historical fiction that is base on true events but is written in a fictional way. If I had to rate this book on a scale of 1-10, I would rate it between a 5 or a 6. The reason for this rating of a five or six is that I had no problem with the plot, but the story using so many characters moving in and out of the plot was really confusing. At times it would go to fast and I would loss my place, but there was a good theme in the book.

I think the theme is about some people being scared of their past. The story is about a guy named Joe Kavalier who is an artist trained in Houdini-esque escape, loves to talk to people who meets this other guy who becomes his friend. This other man’s name is Sammy Clay a outgoing people that loves to read comic books and he is trying to write a comic book series. Sammy and Joe dream up a comic book hero. Then Joe goes off to war and returns dressed up like the comic book hero they made up to surprise Sammy and his friends. I really don’t want to give you all the plot because it will give away the ending. The book starts out in New York City post World War II on a cold night at Joe’s mom’s house.

What I did like about the book was that author was really good at setting the scene of the place as well as making the characters feeling like they are real.

The book was great at various different points, especially the first 250 pages. However, then it became drowned out with needless detail that ultimately leads to a rushed ending that is unsatisfying and in many ways incomplete.