In a word, SENSATIONAL! Such a quirky, original, and above-all joyous sequel. The characters pop off the page, and the writing is luminous. I loved every word, and inhaled it. More, more more….

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this Arc!

One of my favorite books has been A Visit from the Goon Squad for a long time. So when I saw that there was a new book that is related and by this ingenious author, I could not wait to read it. And I was not disappointed!

I love these short tales going from character to character, all somehow relative but in different times, and this complex weaving of these different stories creates a beautiful full picture by the end. And, if this impacts me like Goon Squad, I will be caught in moments years from now thinking of these characters and their lives, their thoughts and opinions

No, it is not straightforward. My suggestion to readers, as is always my suggestion with stories like this, is to just let go of preconceptions and just go with it. This book is incredibly insightful and delves deeply into some very important issues like authenticity and something I've asked myself a lot in the last few years... Are we losing touch?

Great read. Highly recommend A Visit from the Goon Squad. It's a provocative style of story telling but I'm hoping people read this and see the big picture the author is painting.

Comes out April 5th!

I really really wanted to love this book but I did not. It was not for me.

It jumped around and was a slog to get through. I kept putting it down and then dreaded picking it back up. I didn't love her other novels so I wasn't too hopeful for this one.

Next!

What a brilliant writer! It’s hard to write a review of this one because it’s bends and folds genres while continually pulling at my heart. Characters have differing strengths of connection with one another - people weaving in and out of pages and sections. While it took me time to flip back and recall the characters as they reappeared sections later, I found this writing style so challenging as a reader and yet satisfying as I linked together stories and characters. In the end, I see this novel as a book about connections within ourselves and each other and how we all have this insatiable need to be accepted, fulfilled, and loved. Buckle up and just go with it - that’s my advice with Egan’s latest. It’s worth the ride. Thanks to Scribner for the advanced copy.

I am probably missing something since I did not read the goon squad novel that preceded this one, but I was able to get through the Candy House nonetheless. It took me about 50% of the book to grasp the writing style and events. Until then, it seemed all over the place, and I wondered if I had mistakenly thought it was a collection of short stories. By the end, I saw how everything came together and appreciated and enjoyed the novel very much.

A couple of characters from “Goon Squad” put in an appearance in this story about about a software platform that allows memories to be uploaded to the cloud and accessed by anyone. Fast paced and thought provoking, perhaps Jennifer Egan’s best book to date!

This is an incredibly interesting story of technology got awry. It’s perfectly timed for over technological world that we currently live in. The story is perfectly paste an interesting to read. I kept imagining myself in the same situation as the characters. I feel like that’s always the sign of a great book.

This is a tough book to get your arms around as a reviewer. It is a sweeping narrative that spans decades from the recent past to the future, with interlocking characters that makes "This is Us" TV show seem like a small cast of characters. Each chapter brings a new point of view, a new style (there is an entire chapter of Tweet-like stream of consciousness, which is just as annoying as having an all-snack diet), and others that will test your patience as a reader as you try to knit together what Egan is trying to do and how each character fits into this warped vision of society where tech bros are even more noxious than they are in reality, where anyone's thoughts and experiences can be downloaded and shared, and where companies can create "Total Recall" scenarios at the push of a button. Dystopia doesn't even begin to explain what is going on here. Did I like the book? For the most part. If you are the kind of reader that tires just having multiple first-person narrators, this isn't the novel for you. But it clearly shows Egan's prowess at spinning a complex world-wide tale that will take you into a very different place.

I enjoyed this book,a bit uneven and hard to follow at times but well written…parts were very funny,others sad. …very different from Manhattan Beach. Well worth reading

Jennifer Eagan's new release is being billed as "a sibling novel to her Pulitzer Prize- and ​NBCC Award-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad—an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity and meaning in a world where memories and identities are no longer private."

I didn't know that going in. I might not have been so excited about The Candy House if I had known that -- so read the following with that in mind.

The Candy House started off so strong because Egan is such a talented writer. The book hinges on Bix Bouton's’s new technology, “Own Your Unconscious," a devise that allows you to re-experience every emotion and relive all the moments of your life -- but you have to download all of your thoughts and memories into a collective that anyone can access.

A really interesting idea and a great writer, but the book completely lost me. There were so many characters whose lives were weaved together somehow. So many that I can't even tell you how many because the narrator kept changing.

All of these individual story lines were interesting on their own, but they were just too short and too many. I could follow how some of the folks were interconnected, but could not keep track. I seriously needed a map of relationships. That would have made this novel somewhat easier too follow. It was too much and all over the place. I read for entertainment and joy, not to study. So, this one is a pass for me, unfortunately.

Compelling from its first few pages, "The Candy House" is a novel in hyperdrive. I didn't read "A Visit From The Goon Squad," so I'm not sure how closely these characters tie to the earlier novel, but I thought the cast of this novel was strikingly parallel to people in the real world. Egan is able to articulate through her characters the nuances of life and family that are commonly glossed over when we see comparable figures in media. I'll continue thinking about this book in the years to come.

So, I just really didn't get this book. I found it confusing, hard to understand, and just all over the place. Definitely not my cup of tea! I tried to get into it, but I found myself rushing to finish.

It took me quite awhile to get into this book. Honestly, I was pretty tempted to DNF it. The first 150 pages or so were so jumpy - there were so many characters, so many different plot points, and not of a lot of it was gripping my interest. The most interesting part for me was Bix's storyline, and that's what kept me going. I'm glad I finished this book though - about halfway in, I got captivated enough where I couldn't put it down! I ended up enjoying it a lot. It was heavy, both intellectually and emotionally. I've read other works by Egan before and it was reminiscent of her style - each character feels fully fleshed out with so many intricate details, and everything is interwoven in fascinating and sometimes miniscule-seeming ways that have unintended lasting impacts (much like real life!) That said, she withholds a lot too. Any one of these characters could have an entire novel wholly devoted to them. There were so many moments where I wanted to know more, or sometimes, less. But overall it was an enjoyable
and thought-provoking read and I'm glad I stuck it out! 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

If you enjoyed A Visit From The Goon Squad you will also really love this. It has an extremely well-written and sophisticated writing style and the plot is memorable and rewarding. And believe me, when I read the blurbs calling this “dazzling” and basically touting Egan as “the writer of our time” I rolled my eyes. But she really can write! She knows how to make me feel things and look at topics in a different light. And more often than not when reading this I just kept thinking how original and thought-provoking so many of the characters’ individual journeys turned out to be. And just like the Goon Squad, this had a wonderful ending scene with a timely message. Although the two novels can be read separately, you will get much more out of it if you read them both since most of the characters are the same. I think I’ll be thinking about both books for a long time. 4.5 stars!

I received an advanced copy of this much anticipated new novel from Jennifer Egan, so thank you Netgalley.

An incredible follow up to "A Visit From the Good Squad," Egan deploys a lot of the same tricks that made that book so universally praised. Stories loop and meander and connect; characters pop up again and again. While a virtual reality-like memory capture system is woven throughout, the book steers far clear of the easy anti-tech bias that plagues other writers. Some chapters towards the end veer off into science fiction territory and loses a little steam, particularly one where a character becomes a tech enabled spy, but overall the book focuses on telling the stories of all these interconnected lives.

Writing about a world where individual privacy is a thing of the past actually seems to be our present. Being able to upload your entire past experience/emotions for either personal use later or to share with the world may be exciting to some but beyond frightening to others. I do love the chain of acquaintances that drive Ms Eagan’s chapters and novel. And through it all, most are still looking for a personal, human connection. This is a very creatively written novel by an obvious master of language and dreaming!

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner Books for the ARC to read and review.

As kaleidoscopic and prescient as A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD, THE CANDY HOUSE was both a delight and a surprise. It breaks new ground, even in following or invoking characters from the prior novel. I loved seeing how interconnected these characters are once again, but reading A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD is by no means a prerequisite.

I’m writing this review having just finished The Candy House by Jennifer Egan. It’s brilliant, confusing, and a very challenging read. I enjoyed Egan’s book A Visit From the Good Squad (2010) but read it too long ago to remember all of the characters, most of whom reappear in The Candy House. Perhaps if you read both books in sequence, it would make more sense. While I salute Egan’s message about the dangers of technology taking over our lives, I found the sheer number of characters, the constant change of story lines and writing style, and a shifting timeline to be too difficult to absorb. Egan’s futuristic concept that you can download your consciousness into a device and share your memories or upload your consciousness into a collective consciousness is fascinating to explore. While she does connect many of the dots by the end of the book, it was too fragmented along the way and I kept wondering if I was missing something.

Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for an advanced copy of this book.

I tried and tried, and tried with this book, but I don’t think it was my cup of tea. I could see it as being immersive if you loved reading Matrix-like stories that are lengthily. While it wasn’t for me, I will say that the author does a remarkable job of story telling, interweaving characters and truly creating their world. It is incredibly well written and I’m sure will be on all the best seller lists.

This was delightful to read, but it's somehow a book that somehow cannot be adequately summarized. There isn't a "narrative" to the story, per se, as every section follows a separate character which their own narrative and often, their own style. One section is told through a series of emails, and one section is told through a series of aphorisms. But it all connects in a way, back to a central story and a central, yet sprawling, cast of characters.

The technology at the center of this story is fascinating - basically, you can download your entire consciousness into a device and share your memories with others. Your consciousness, or pieces of it, can then be uploaded into a collective consciousness for others to mine through for their own purposes. We hear from the inventor of this technology, a woman whose research unintentionally led to the technology, someone who mines the collective consciousness data, the son of the inventor, and many more, all in separate, disconnected ways.

I read The Goon Squad many years ago and at the time thought it was okay. So when I first saw this book described as a continuation of that story, I wasn't super interested. But when I heard more about this book, including the central technology and some acclaim that its already been getting, my interest was very piqued. You don't need to be a fan of The Goon Squad to enjoy this work, and in fact, I'm not even sure you need to have read it. Even though some characters continue on into this novel, it felt very different and stands on its own.

Fair warning for anyone deciding whether to read this book: it's weird. But for me, it was weird in a really good way.