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Elliot Allagash
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Product Description
Review
'I found Simon Rich's first novel, about an evil teenage billionaire, to be suspenseful and hilarious.' --Judd Apatow (Producer, Superbad, Knocked Up)
'One of the funniest books about high schoolers since The Catcher in the Rye.' --A. J. Jacobs (Author of The Year of Living Biblically)
'Fellow high school losers, use your video game money to buy this book!' --Gary Shteyngart (Author of Absurdistan, The Russian Debutante's Handbook)
'Rich is always funny, and he nails the bogus solemnity of high-school social politics.' --Kirkus Reviews
'An unfailingly funny and compulsively readable mix of sweet and sour that will leave readers hoping for another helping.' --Booklist
'A hilarious, high-spirited and hormone-fuelled romp through teenage angst and offbeat antics.' --Monocle
`Simon Rich's absurdist approach to the underdog archetype makes for a hilarious and heartwarming romp.' -- USA Today
`Clueless for boys ...studded with rococo set pieces of ruthless masculine one-upmanship... a joy to read' -- Daily Beast
`Delightful' -- Robert Chilver, Waterstone's Books Quarterly
'Funny, smart and generally bloody brilliant - read it.' --Heat magazine book club verdict
`A canny mixture of wish-fulfilment, fantasy and morality tale... The most enjoyable classroom comedy since Tom Perrotta's Election.' --Adrian Turpin, FT
`Scabrous, subtle and savvy' -- Literary Review
'One of the funniest books about high schoolers since The Catcher in the Rye.' --A. J. Jacobs (Author of The Year of Living Biblically)
'Fellow high school losers, use your video game money to buy this book!' --Gary Shteyngart (Author of Absurdistan, The Russian Debutante's Handbook)
'Rich is always funny, and he nails the bogus solemnity of high-school social politics.' --Kirkus Reviews
'An unfailingly funny and compulsively readable mix of sweet and sour that will leave readers hoping for another helping.' --Booklist
'A hilarious, high-spirited and hormone-fuelled romp through teenage angst and offbeat antics.' --Monocle
`Simon Rich's absurdist approach to the underdog archetype makes for a hilarious and heartwarming romp.' -- USA Today
`Clueless for boys ...studded with rococo set pieces of ruthless masculine one-upmanship... a joy to read' -- Daily Beast
`Delightful' -- Robert Chilver, Waterstone's Books Quarterly
'Funny, smart and generally bloody brilliant - read it.' --Heat magazine book club verdict
`A canny mixture of wish-fulfilment, fantasy and morality tale... The most enjoyable classroom comedy since Tom Perrotta's Election.' --Adrian Turpin, FT
`Scabrous, subtle and savvy' -- Literary Review
Book Description
Manipulative like Cruel Intentions, malicious like Heathers, competitive like Election, inept like Napoleon Dynamite, Elliot Allagash proves that everyone has a price
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fresh, quirky and smart YA comedy,
By L (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Elliot Allagash (Paperback)
Part coming-of-age story, part high school satire, Elliot Allagash is one of the cleverest books I've read in a long time. Absurd, exhilirating and sometimes just plain odd, this tale of one boy's pact with the devil has had some mixed reviews - but I have no idea why. It's genius.
We see events through the eyes of resigned loser, Seymour, but it's Elliot Allagash himself who really steals the show. The only son of an impossibly rich widower, Elliot is keenly aware that his money makes him hugely powerful. As a human being, he has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He's ruthless, manipulative and utterly without empathy for his peers. But as a character, he's fascinating. For Elliot, life is all about cheating. From fixing the results of a school election to enacting overblown revenge on anyone who dares to slight him, it's like sport to him. He disects the world around him with a cold detachment, exploiting his opponents' weaknesses and revelling in his own cleverness. Which is why, from the moment that Elliot tells Seymour - the most unpopular boy at Glendale Prep - that he can make him king of the school, we know it's not out of the goodness of his heart. And yet, there's something so clever about Elliot's methods that it's impossible not to feel at least a little impressed by them. Besides, there's an element of wish-fulfilment here for the reader too: who doesn't want the likeable loser to seize power from the hands of those who ignore and torment him? Simon Rich weaves a tale as enticing as it is entertaining, spiked with potent dark humour and just a dash of poignancy. Occasionally we have to suspend our disbelief a little further than is comfortable, but it's worth it - and easy when you're having fun. While drawing lightly on familiar tales of genies and Faustian Bargains, Rich tells his story with a fresh voice and with his own brand of endearingly quirky symbolism. Elliot Allagash is unusual, hilarious, and deceptively smart. I'm not in the least bit surprised that there's a movie adaptation in the pipeline, but I would recommend checking it out now in novel form for something deliciously different.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Smart, funny and hard to put down,
This review is from: Elliot Allagash (Paperback)
After several months of reading very long, very serious novels for our book club, this book was (I initially thought) light relief!
The cover and blurb led me to believe that this was going to be a fun, Gossip Girl-style story...and it was, sort of. The cleverness and depth of this book belies the frothy cover, and although I laughed many times over the course of the story the overwhelming tone and message is a pretty dark one. I have to say that I loved this book - Elliot's twisted power-mad persona and his equally bonkers father Terry are delightfully awful - and I'm thrilled that the film rights have been bought by Jason Reitman (Juno, Up In The Air), as I think it will be a cracking movie. Highly recommended.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb!,
By Rogue Eyebrow (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Elliot Allagash (Paperback)
I'm a bit embarrassed to read that this is supposed to be "young adult" fiction, since I thought it was excellent and I'm middle-aged! I had no sense that I was reading a book pitched at a young market. It's superbly well-written, inventive, full of surprises and very funny. I'll be buying several people this for Xmas.
It's set in a New York high school but as a UK reader that didn't give me any problems. Can't wait for this guy to write some more.
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