Detachment from the characters
"Everyone likes to write about the judge—and for good reason, him being one of the most vivid villains in all of literature…"

John Hillcoat
I finally finished reading and can join the party!

I am very very happy this movie is finally coming out…
…so I never, ever have to see its damned previews again. Whoever thinks that the audience for the Daily Show and Colbert is the same as the one for this deserves to be shot.

I was actually scrolling down to suggest that myself. Glad to see someone beat me to it. Easily one of the most engaging works of contemporary fiction I've read. (as an aside, I need to get my hands on Sunnyside ASAP…)

Yeah, I'm sure it's been posited before, but my guess is bomb detonation = everyone goes back to their proper time. And I would assume everyone is okay, just like Desmond when the hatch blew up. Hey - maybe they'll all show up naked in 2007.

I think it's been pretty well established at this point in the discussion that Dunn doesn't make her own objectives readily apparent - or at least not tidy black-and-white - throughout the novel. However, I kept finding myself trying to figure out her intentions with Lick. Lick's surface motivation is to better the…

Tone
Thanks Leonard; I think you hit the nail on the head. One of the more unique aspects of the book for me is how matter-of-factly everything is presented and that the tone of the book isn't any "darker" than your average bestseller. So even though there are bizarre things happening, or things outside the realm of…

The orange one is the original Chip Kidd-designed cover. He describes it in his monograph, Chip Kidd: Book One. If I remember correctly, the orange was just meant to be garish and unnatural, and he designed the type by hand (you see some of his sketches in the book) to represent the deformities/freakishness of the…

Weenus: That makes sense.

Morality
As I'm sure is the case with many, I found myself simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by this book. On the one hand, Dunn creates a singular vision and captivating (if not fully realized) world her characters inhabit. On the other hand, I found very little to actually connect with. While fascinating, it's…

TomWaits: I agree completely. I have a feeling that once this whole series is over and I go back and watch the first season again, I'm going to be very very disappointed. That is, unless Walt is addressed in a major way next season, which is possible. If season 5 shares some symmetry with season 2, then maybe season 6…

Agreed. In retrospect, it's hard to believe the show predated the O.C. by a few years. I wonder if I had come out after that show if it had been more successful (since I think by the time it aired, there was a post-Dawson teen drama vacuum and its satire might not have been fully appreciated). And think of what they…