Reviews for Everything You Need

The average rating for Everything You Need based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-01-20 00:00:00 Tim Yeazell Just tell her. Tell your daughter she's your daughter. Tell her you're her father. How hard is that? Just tell her. JUST.TELL.HER. She was four when your wife told you goodbye and took her. And don't follow, she said, or else. Or else being that allegation. But you didn't do that and it doesn't seem you took the threat seriously. So you didn't follow. Not even just a few years later when your wife abandons your daughter to her gay brother and his lover - the Uncles. Surely then you could have asserted a right. Instead, you wait on a little island - an island where you are one of seven writers. It's quiet there. And home to an odd literary inspiration. Instead of having affairs or driving in traffic or talking to someone with a real job, instead of, you know, real life, you and the others attempt suicide: hanging yourself, swimming with sharks, that sort of thing. You never succeed, the point being to come real close. It is to this island that you contrive to bring your daughter, who now aspires to be a writer. You award her a Fellowship. She comes. To be mentored by you. This would be a good time to tell her, sometime in the seven years she's there. You do not tell her. You almost kill your dog in yet another suicide attempt. But you don't tell your daughter she's your daughter. It would have been, I firmly believe, a wonderful conversation, because this book is full of great conversations. And, not counting the dog, there are three great characters, but with buts. The Uncles are superb. . . but after showing us how wonderful they are, we are then told, over and over and over again, how wonderful they are. And your drunken but intelligent, articulate, funny editor is a superb character. . . but was it really necessary for him to go to a gay dominant to get an enema and a tooth pulled, other than the author's well-known need to shock? I liked this book, even if I don't sound like I liked this book. But I feel used.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-06-13 00:00:00 Roy Coleman Jesus, this wounded mess is indeed perfect for the heartbroken, the shattered, those that sup on debris and mourn the light. Amazing chunks and weaves of this novel remain intact eleven years later, an amazing feat. Kennedy is both personal and palpable, ultimately relentless, her charatcers you empathize with to the horizons of self-mutilation and abnegation. This novel is laden with resounding slaps and warm, musky hugs.