Official Review: Call Me Pomeroy by James Hanna

[Anthony-Quao Michael]

I read "Call me Pomeroy by James Hanna. And is a good book which contains all the qualities of a good book. The protagonist, Pomeroy who wants to become a musician, obviously a "rockstar", but is comfronted by problems ( but I call it woes or probably badluck ) no matter how hard he tries. A young lady ( don't ask me her name because I won't tell you ) tries to convince him that he would never make it but rather will do better if he find a better job other than being a musician.
Hmm! I can't hide my overwhelming joy and enthusiasm the first time I sat to read. In fact I won't talk much. Just guess the mystery behind its title, " call me Pomeroy ". It's not just a title, I call it a revolution in literature.
I can't afford to miss the key concept in this story. The author just employed the right words and concept. What good choice of words? I give it a five star rating.

[Janetleighgreen]

This is a good review, I downloaded my copy today. The review made me smile because I'm married to a musician who was homeless for a while. He lived at Lake Travis in Austin for a time. Thanks for the smiles!

[Silvermoon]

Although crude humor that is egotistical and sexist is not usually my type of genre, the book does sound amusing. You gave a nice view of the book. Nice job!

[Rach93]

Great review!!! Not really the type of book that I would usually dive into and read myself. I did sample a few pages and what I did read certainly gave me a good laugh

[Christina Rose]

Sounds like an interesting read. I may give it a try. Thanks for your review!

[Pennybutterfly8]

I agree with you on this review, this book is definitely a deal breaker. Job well done Mr. Hanna

[CaitlynLynch]

Sounds like a fun glimpse of a very politically incorrect character!

[Rebecca_Rivera]

You can't help but laugh at this guy, even while reading the blurb. I'm gonna check this one out.

[Ljessup]

This is a great review! Thank you for your candor. I will have to read this book soon! I did grab a copy! Well done!

[Cakey510]

I previously reviewed James Hanna’s excellent “A Second, Less Capable Head” collection of short stories, praising it highly and giving it five stars.

In this case, Hanna has all the same quality of writing and creativity as he did in his short stories, so why the difference in rating? For one thing, I can say of all of Hanna’s stories (that I’ve read) that they are creative in equal measure. Including this one, a novel, that thus — for me — needed a bit more than goes into a short story.

The plot was supremely straightforward, and I tend to prefer books that have threads of a story woven together to create a rich tapestry.

Hanna’s ability to write different kinds of character well (as evidenced in “A Second, Less Capable Head”) is wasted here as we see everything from Pomeroy’s very narrow perspective, and with the “unreliable narrator” trope so strongly in force throughout that it is difficult see any other characters at all, through the lens of Pomeroy’s narcissism and misogyny. The unreliable narrator idea can be used well even with a highly narcissistic lead; take “American Psycho” for example, but here, it results in a rather one-dimensional view. American Psycho’s unreliable narration gives the reader ambiguities; Call Me Pomeroy’s unreliable narration gives the reader tunnel vision.

Regards this being “a novel of satire and political dissent”, I will agree with some of the other reviewers who are saying that they could not find the satire — I don’t think that merely having cliché characters qualifies as satire, per se — and as for political dissent, well, we meet protesters, if that counts, but if you’re looking for political commentary, this isn’t where you’ll find it, beyond a very base (and mostly faulty; we can attribute this to Pomeroy’s ignorance, of course, not Hanna’s, I’m sure) understanding of the movements detailed here, specifically, Occupy Wall Street and Femen.

All in all, this is very well-written in terms of the writing, but the content is very much of a muchness, and I’d have enjoyed it a lot more had it been whittled down to a short story to join Hanna’s highly recommendable collection of such.

[Jeconiaomolo]

This modern-day comedic fiction story sounds very intriguing. The character pomeroy must have been very funny. Otherwise I am happy you enjoyed the book. Thanks for this nice review;it is wonderful.

[Catherine Hsu]

I would love to read this and learn more about the "new world" philosophy. Congrats to the author on BOTD.

[Surabhi Rani]

'Official Review: Call Me Pomeroy', by James Hanna gives a crystal clear image of the book, in the mind of the reader.

[ritah]

Thank you for the engaging and funny review! Pomeroy seems like quite the paradox!

[ReviewerDiksha]

I haven't read a good, comical book in a long time. I look forward to reading this. Great job on the review.