Basically 'I am the Cheese' meets 'Go ask Alice' with better prose than the latter. It seems as regrettable that the author wasted his effort on such an insipid, moralistic story as that I wasted my time reading such an insipid, moralistic story. ( )

The narrator, a young boy recently graduated from high school, gives and account of his life to an unnamed interrogator. He tells about his friends, and especially his long standing friend Nettie, and the new friends he makes including Robin who takes a particular liking to him; and the enigmatic Flynn. He also tells of his remarkable elementary school teacher who introduces him to film making; and the new neighbours, an open-minded young couple.

When he catches his new neighbours supposedly in the privacy of their own garden enjoying one another, he uses his movie camera, a gift from his school teacher, to get a better view, but he can only use the zoom while depressing the shutter. What he unwittingly captures on film turns out to be quite outrageous, especially when the family dog joins in! It is this film which in turn determines the subsequent events in his life, as the story reveals.

The unusual format of the book coupled with the quality of the prose makes for most interesting reading. As the young narrator explains himself we are never quite sure how much is truth, how much is exaggeration, how much is dreamed or just pure invention. Some of his descriptions, reflecting his interest, are in film script format, some are in fact dreams. At times he is very frank and explicit, and here the prose can be quite blue, yet such passages are somehow neutral and detached.

The conclusion reveals the true situation, but it is not until the last few pages, if then, that one even has so much as a glimmer of what is really happening. To say more would spoil the story, and if my review seems somewhat vague, please forgive me, but to reveal any more (and there is a great deal more) would be unfair to potential readers. ( )

I found this an odd, yet disturbing read. I had in the back of my mind Room 101 from 'Nineteen Eighty Four' whilst reading this as it is unclear who those doing the interrogating are.

A weird world unfolds, completely surreal but easy to fall into. A bizarrley enjoyable read where we are made to feel (and be?) accountable for EVERYTHING we have done in life. Could this be a metaphor for our first encounter with God?

Not every going to be the best book I've read but worthwhile. If you are reading the book based on the blurb - 16 year old recording his neighbours - then you will be disappointed as this is a media crux I beleive to get you read it in the first place. If like me the title caught your eye you won't be disaappointed. ( )

Well Alanna, this book did make me think about you. But beyond that: the sneer, Michael Turner, the turtleneck, the twelve-year-old kids talking about Dutch Colonials immediately make me think we're gonna have trouble here. Those are not people of a kind who exist. Or if they are, they're not people of a kind whom I want to know anything about. That said, the beginning section captures cusp-of innocence quite perfectly. The middle is bullshit--I mean, whose names are you dropping, dick? This is a novel and they are fictional characters and you are a grown man so stop trying to sell us on punk auteur. And then the last section has a mystery but more importantly a mystical ouroboros thing where instead of letting credibility rest on the token unreliablenarratoring provided throughout by the question sections (which do not sustain that credibility on their own) you say okay, I know, this kind of thing only works by disappearing up its own asshole because once you're "The Pornographer's Poem," you either stay that forever, become it again and again, or leave it behind completely. So yeah: artists do get trapped by their personae. That, and the kids in Grade 7, and sex, gets you your 3.5. Just barely. ( )

A strange little book, mixing a variety of storytelling methods (from interviews to movie scripts to unfinished letters to diary entries to lists...) to tell the story of just how a high school kid ended up making and selling amateur porn in Vancouver.

I enjoyed it the first time I read it, but I've never been able to read it over again, I always get stopped up somewhere within the first 50 pages or so. ( )