Bream Gives Me Hiccups: And Other Stories by Jesse Eisenberg

From the moment I received this book, I had my doubts about it. I'm not sure if it was because of the title, or because it was written by an actor, or perhaps it was the undue praise it had pasted all over its cover, but I began this book under a heavy cloud of skepticism. Even still, I gave it a try. It would seem that my initial skepticism on the work was warranted. Allow me to break this down a bit, section by section, seeing as this is a collection of stories. The book begins with its namesake, a section devoted to a list of reviews given by a nine year old kid who has a few parental problems. It would seem that neither of his parents truly care for him. I suppose that perhaps, on the surface, this was a unique idea, but it was executed rather poorly. It was all that I could do to just get through this section without closing the book for good. The writing is dull and listless and fails to draw the reader in any further. The section, entitled Family, does no better, and a third section, History, follows suit. And then, there was the fourth section, My Roommate Stole my Ramen: Letters from a Frustrated Freshman. This was the savings grace of the entire collection of stories and, truly, the only section worth reading, in my humble opinion. It details a series of letters a somewhat mentally awkward college freshmen has written to their high school guidance counselor in regards to that first year in college. It was a fresh take on an idea, peppered with good humor, and with an interesting use of footnotes. It left me thinking that perhaps their was hope for this collection of stories yet. Jesse probably should have just left it there, but he continued with another section, and another, and another. Five more sections of abysmal, lackluster writing with only one bright spot in a story entitled 'Nick Garret's Review of Rachel Lowenstein's New Book, Getting Away.' This story did a good job at pulling me into a tale of heart ache and unrequited love. All in all, this collection had a lot of potential. There were some good ideas here and there, but the sub-par execution and uninspired writing really brought the whole thing down. At times, the writing seemed to be rather pretentious and snooty. It was as if Jesse wanted to flaunt how smart he was and how much he knew about other cultures and foreign affairs. At other times, it just dragged on and on and on. The best part of reading this collection was putting it down. My thoughts on the book, in one word: meh.

2 OUT OF 5 STARS