Everyone's Pretty by Lydia Millet

Everyone's Pretty Reviews

• 
  Steev Hise

  reminds me of Chuck Palahniuk. snarky, irreverent, hyperbolic... full of lots of weirdos and scumbags..
  
  It's kind of simplistic, even though the plot is very convoluted, with multiple characters running around coincidentally bumping into one another. but all the characters are somewhat stereotypical and black or white - either degenerate ingrates or naive, self-righteous jesus freaks. except for Alice, who turns out to be the main character, but i didn't realize that until at least 30 pages in.
  
  Basically it's a fun book but not really as deep as it seemed like it would be. But it's a fast easy read, took me 2 days.
• 
  Giovanni

  An offensive, racist train wreck of a book
• 
  Richard

  Dean Decetes, a pornographer with messianic delusions, spins out of control in Los Angelese, where he spends his time drinking himself into a stupor, getting beaten up by strangers he's reckessly insulted, stealing credit cards to pay for sex, being arrested, begging favors, and mounting a PR campaign to make himself famous, with the help of a "loyal footsolider"--a porn-loving midget he met in jail.
  Meanwhile his pious, romantic spinster sister, who reluctantly keeps house for him, busies herself writing quasi-religious love notes to the boss she worships at the statistics company where she works, and her co-workers—an obsessive-compulsive Christian Scientist in a twisted marriage and a promiscuous, depressed blond bomb-shell—become enmeshed in her life as she dreams of ridding herself of her freeloading brother and being carried away on a white horse by her employer. Next door, a teenage math genius runs away from home after her mother humiliates her in school and hooks up at a bar with Decetes's suicidal editor.
  
  The story is told from five points of view—those of Decetes, his sister, the lonely blonde, the Christian scientist & the high school math genius—over three days which the five lives collide as they all mount blundering searches for love and meaning.
• 
  Roland

  Everyone’s Pretty is a great read. Millet’s prose is fun and engaging, clever and insightful. The characters and storyline are reminiscent of Tom Robbins and Carl Hiaasen, and the protagonist, Dean Ducetes and his midget cohort, Ken, could have found their way from the pages of Bukowski’s works. Sex and religion and the collateral damage that comes from living in LA are prevalent themes in the novel. Ducetes, a hedonist nonpareil, is a self-anointed messiah, while his sister Bucella, pure and naïve as they come, is a follower of Christ, devoted like no other. In rapid succession, through a series of narrative vignettes, they and the story’s wayward cast of other eclectics undergo a variety of haphazard encounters and off-the-wall scenarios that keep the reader entertained and laughing.Good stuff.
• 
  Cindy

  Well, I read it. Interesting and very messed up cast of characters. This is probably not a book I would encourage others to read. I will say there is something I like about the writer's style, yet I am not sure what, and I am not sure it is this book. Yes, this is an odd review for an odd book.
• 
  L-J Johnson

  I'm disappointed I didn't like this since I loved Millet's A Children's Bible. It's hard to believe the same author wrote both books; the vibes are so different. A Children's Bible was subtle and challenging and intense, and this was - more or less - a raunchy comedy. That I didn't find funny. Too much forced outrageousness.
• 
  Vivienne Strauss

  Try and I might, I only made it to page 86 after several attempts.
• 
  Edward Champion

  I think Millet tried a little too hard to be irreverent here. But this is still an entertaining book. I think she needed to write this to get to HOW THE DEAD DREAM, which is a legitimate masterpiece.
• 
  Judy

  Incandescent. Stupendous.
• 
  Chris

  Wanting to add another LA text to my research, I picked up this novel - a farcical tale of a porn producer, his Christian martyr sister, and sundry other characters, somehow inevitably including a horny dwarf. The plot is pretty over the top, but then again, it is LA. The quick jumps between character perspective keep the story moving at a compelling pace.
• 
  John

  I'm generally a fan of Millet's work, but for some reason I just could not get into this one. I tried it three years ago, decided to try again, and my reaction is still the same. Go with My Happy Life and Oh Pure and Radiant Heart instead.
• 
  Kelly

  This is a more slapstick piece of Millet's, and I have to say I'm a fan of her more subtle works. This novel is reminiscent of Tom Robbins, and if you like stomach turning, oh so dark, yeah-she-went-there humour, then this book is for you.
• 
  Nōn

  midgets and drugs and porn and insanity.
• 
  Erika

  Oh this was wacky, but addictive! I liked it.
• 
  Brian

  Like a good '90s indie movie, Altmanesque, but smart and strangely fascinating and all very nicely constructed. The characters were distinct and engaging and believeable.
• 
  Emily

  Not my kind of book but it was worth a try.
• 
  jennifer

  Different versions of religious self-delusion and a hell of a lot of comedy. Still parsing the title...
• 
  Frankie Rollins

  This reminds me of Confederacy of Dunces. I enjoyed the read.