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    Men, Women & Children Tie-in: A Novel
    Men, Women & Children Tie-in: A Novel
    Men, Women & Children Tie-in: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    Men, Women & Children Tie-in: A Novel

    Written by Chad Kultgen

    Narrated by Michael Rahhal

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The author of The Average American Male and The Lie returns with a shocking, salacious, and surprisingly subtle new novel of the average American family. Like Neil Strauss and Nick Hornby, Chad Kultgen has the capacity to enthrall and astonish even the most ardent readers of contemporary literary fiction. In Men, Women, and Children, his incisive vision, unerring prose, and red-light-district imagination are at their most ambitious and surprising, as he explores the sexual pressures of junior high school students and their parents navigating the internet’s shared landscape of pornography, blogs, social networking, and its promise of opportunities, escapes, reinvented identities, and unexpected conflicts.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateNov 4, 2014
    ISBN9780062362063
    Men, Women & Children Tie-in: A Novel
    Author

    Chad Kultgen

    Chad Kultgen is a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His novels include The Average American Male, The Average American Marriage, The Lie, and Men, Women & Children, the basis of a feature film by Jason Reitman. He lives in California.

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    Reviews for Men, Women & Children Tie-in

    3.5/5

    10 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I have a sort of love/hate thing going with Chad Kultgen's books. In "The Average American Male", it seemed like he worded everything for shock value and the biggest cringe factor he could get. But after polling some of my average American guy friends about some of the points in the book, most said, "Ya, that's pretty much right." "The Lie", Kultgen's second book centering the concept of the man/woman relationship dynamic was just as brutal to my tender heart, and polled, once again, as pretty accurate in my guy-friends pool.So, when I received the third book, "Men, Women and Children", I was very afraid. But, as I began to read it, I recognized all sorts of people I know in its pages. I don't need to poll this time. Kultgen still speaks the truth, albeit in the most graphic, TMI, sexual way possible, but somehow gentler than he has before (don't ask me to explain that, I'm still working through that myself). This book deals with families, and all the relationships that are involved, and all of the secrets they keep from each other. There is a profound emotionality to this book that hasn't been present before--there are moments of genuine heart-break in these pages that are stark, raw, and desperately true. These stories are digging much farther than the grubby surface to something dark but meaningful, almost illuminating. This is far from a comfortable or easy read, but I found it to be rather profound (as well as profane--don't say I didn't warn you), and I'm still struggling with some of the ideas that are brought up in it. I'm impressed, to say the least.
    • 4/5
      Whenever I watch a film adaptation of a book I have not read, I experience moments of doubt and anxiety, believing myself unable to grasp the story in its most complete form. A picture may paint a thousand words, but words can also serve to illustrate the more subtle and intangible facets of the human condition. It is these facets, that I believe, I am missing out on in the instances where I have yet to read the pre-existing texts. These feelings are, of course, completely irrational; film is an excellent and unique medium for artistic expression with decades of theory and criticism informing and being informed by its productions. However, as the film progressed, I began to feel as if what was presented to me on screen was lacking. The characters were devoid of the depth and charm integral for character driven plots, and ultimately it made for a blasé watching experience.After checking out the IMDB message boards, I came across many posters who expressed disappointment in the ‘watering down’ of the narrative for film and this served as the impetus in picking up Chad Kultgen’s book a few days later. Having completed the book in the early hours of this morning and giving myself time to mull it over, I find myself agreeing with the IMDB posters and their disappointment. Kultgen’s book has a completely different tone to that of the film, so much so that it is quite jarring to read and definitely a lot more challenging. The film glamourises the experiences of those associated with Goodrich Junior High School and in doing so, dilutes the book’s messages. This isn’t a story akin to a Brazzers porn clip in which overwhelmingly flawless and attractive people incorporate sex into their daily lives without a second thought. No, this is a Dr. Gunther style autopsy on the effect of technology on our contemporary relationships, with Kultgen at the helm, scalpel ready for dissection. It is explicit, no doubt about it, but that doesn’t make the book ‘sexy'. Instead it is awkward and raw, and the frank narrative style puts everything on the table - even the moments most of us would much rather forget, let alone speak of in good company. This style is a new experience for me and I found myself able to connect with the characters on a much deeper level having been given complete, unbiased omniscience. The book is consistent in its approach and upon reading the final lines, I found myself wanting to read more of Kultgen’s work.The ending is, unsurprisingly, open-ended. Kultgen presents the experiences of his characters as evidence in the case against allowing technology to dictate our lives, and it is up to us to decide what our next steps will be. This book informs us that life is already a complicated clusterfuck of choices and pressures, but it also highlights the further complications provided the by the rapidly developing and often insidious nature of computer technology. It is a fascinating read and definitely one I have no qualms in recommending. I would have given this book 5/5 stars, but had to knock one off as large chunks of the book focus on American football games, complete with game play jargon that went completely over my head as an Australian. That aside, I am glad to start off 2015 with a great read and even more thrilled to know that the author has other works for me to devour.
    • 5/5
      SPOILERSExplicit. Disturbing. Amazing. Those were the words that came to mind after I came to the (very depressing) end of Men, Women & Children.Chad Kultgen is quickly becoming my favorite writer of this century. His no-holds-barred books writing style certainly won't appeal to everyone, but if you enjoyed either of his previous novels, you'll at least like this one. Though the main characters in this book are mostly kids, Kultgen does not turn-down the explicit sex in his writing that makes him famous.Be warned, the characters that you love will lose and the ones you hate will win. The antagonists don't get their comeuppance, the protagonists all suffer, and everyone in between becomes a worse person. In fact, over the course of the novel, everyone became a worse person. One girl becomes blindly devoted to a childhood crush, another becomes a slut because she wants to be famous so bad. One boy, after wishing to remain abstinent, basically rapes his girlfriend. The only way a husband and wife are able to stay together is if they begin seeing other people. It's depressing. Don't go into this thinking everything will come out peachy for everybody.This may seem like a critical review, but I loved Men, Women & Children. It's a bit of a diversion from the other book by Kultgen I read (The Average American Male), but it's just as good. I knocked a half a star off because it wasn't as funny as The Average American Male.
    • 1/5
      Meretricious rubbish. If, in the modern mania for list-making, I had a list of the shallowest, least meaningful and most tedious novels I have read in a long lifetime, this one would be very close to the top. The "subject" of the book is the sex lives of a small group of thirteen year old, eighth-grade students and their parents in a small unnamed town in 'Middle America'. The unformed characters of the children are only faintly interesting and those of their self-seeking, sexually-needy parents little more so. I found it revealing that, in the edition I have just finished reading, there is a section of several pages in the middle of the book containing several egregious typos, indicating that (entirely justifiably IMO) the professional proof-reader nodded off.It appears to me that the author was trying very hard to produce a book leading to a sensationally successful film, perhaps "The Valley of the Dolls" of his generation. Do I need to add that "successful" here means money-making, neither more nor less? Could there be any other possible yardstick?!? And speaking of films, it is a mystery to me why the book has, at the top of the front cover: "From the Director of Juno and Up In The Air". The director of those two films was Jason Reitman. There is no indication in the Internet Movie Database that Chad Kultgen had any connection with either of those two well-received films. Is the book cover not then a form of fraud committed on potential purchasers of the book?I note some reviewers found the book funny. What a very subjective and individual thing humour is. I think Terry Pratchett and P.J O'Rourke are funny. To me this book is about as funny as Proust or perhaps Ghormenghast. It is also 'funny' in one sense of the word that one of the very favourable "Editorial Reviews" for this book on Amazon is by "Stoya, star of Perfect Picture" a character about whom one of the parents in the book has an obsession.
    • 5/5
      Literally, my favorite book ever. What a good writer Chad Kultgen is, my goodness.
    • 4/5
      A loaner from a coworker. Started on my lunch break, finished after work. The characters were more developed in this book, and I feel like I got to know them instead of just their strange quirks. Initially, there were too many characters to keep track of, but some stopped having their own narrative sections, and as I got to know them, they were fairly easy to keep apart. Kultgen continued to use first and last names well into the novel though, as well as clarifying when people were related, so I think he realized there would be a problem juggling so many characters. This book definitely had more going for it story-wise, instead of just playing for the shock value. I thought the ending was pretty abrupt, with no real resolution wrapping everything up like he did in his previous two novels. However, I can't really summarize the story, because it was more of a glimpse into a handful of people's lives. I have to say I liked this more than The Lie, yet not as much as The Average American Male.