The Wild Things (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

Cards on the table - I read everything Dave Eggers writes. I think he's an energetic and creative talent unmatched among his contemporaries, so I approached this with huge expectations.

To be honest, it disappointed me a little towards the middle after a very promising start. The end though, saved it, because the writing is so good and the emotions are powerful yet subtle and deftly handled. I'd recommend this for all Eggers fans and big kids. I enjoyed it, but it's not his finest work.

I have not read the children's book `Where The Wild Things Are' by Maurice Sendak for about eight years since my sister was about three or four. It is a book that has always stayed with me though, it's a children's cult classic in a way. Though cult makes it sound like its doing bad things to children's brains and this book doesn't to my knowledge. When I saw David Eggers had written a `cross-over' version of the book I decided I would have a go at reading it. I was slightly dubious that this would be a cash cow as the movie, which Eggers is very much involved with, comes out very soon which is an amalgamation of the new book and the old.

The Wild Things is the tale of Max and an adventure he has after he runs away from home. His parents have divorced in the not too distant past and now he lives with his mother, his sister Claire and his mothers boyfriend (a toy boy) Gary. His mother is very busy with her career two children and a new partner. His sister is very busy ignoring him and becoming a woman, no longer with so much time for Max. His Dad doesn't really figure very much as he lives in the city. So this young boy is going through quite a bag of emotions culminating in a huge rebellion where he ends up running away and trying to sail to his fathers. He doesn't end up there instead he finds an island inhabited by some very strange beasts who he befriends and even becomes King of. Though Kings need to be able to have all the answers and if they don't, like young boys don't always, they might just get eaten.

Its an interesting book. For me as an adult I found it slightly flawed, the first half was utterly brilliant and very entertaining. Sadly once on the island no plot seemed abounds (maybe that is the idea) there also didnt seem to be any reasoning behind the monsters behaviour and yet I felt that Eggers was trying to teach children something. There is a war which goes out of hand but is left unresolved and by the end of the book I couldnt work out what it was trying to say and if in fact it was a book that tried to incorporate an old classic picture book with no real idea of why it was doing it other than a movie tie-in. Good fun to read to children, if you want them to run amock!

I found this a tedious and disappointing read. I heard good reports of "Where the Wild Things Are" as a kids book and picked this up not realising it was Eggers' re-invention of the original (by M Sendak).

It's not a kids book - it runs on themes of creepiness, aggression, despair and family breakdown. It's full of obnoxious behaviour from Max (the 'hero') and others ('tell your boss to F off', etc). The odd nice moments are often salted with creepiness (e.g. the creepy crush that Catherine has on Max)

It's not an adults book either - it just repeats the same cycle over & over: 'Present Max with a problem, watch him come up with a bizarre childish solution to the problem, see the solution go wrong and annoy all the beasts. Rinse. Repeat'. I hoped the cycles would develop as the book went on, but they stayed the same up to the last.

Maybe the author is trying to teach a "being in charge means taking care of people, not having it your way" lesson by showing the opposite of responsibility and how it plays out for Max? I don't know many adults that need that lesson, and I wouldn't give this book to a pre-teen. So that only leaves teens and I'd wonder if they'd give it the time due to the childishness and repetitiveness.

Hate just being critical, wish I had something nice to say about this book but just don't.