I loved this..It was funny and an altogether great read

I had some issues with this book at first, mainly because its themes were a bit heavy given the personal hell I was going through. But it picks up very well once it gets past the initial fascination with itself and the idea of all these famous people in hell. I loved the ending and found it unexpected and remarkably sweet.

This is the first Butler novel I've read, and I'm impressed. His take on hell was lively and thoroughly imagined, and filled with the one-off satiric comments that I love. His characters were well-drawn, and I was particularly impressed with the independence he gave to his female characters. The contemporary comments have already made this book a snapshot of its time, but its willingness to embrace this time-sensitive satire makes it more valuable.

I'm so happy to have discovered Robert Olen Butler. I'm not sure what made me pick up this book (the title? the cover illustration?). Butler takes readers on an enjoyable literary romp through Hell with his protagonist, a TV anchorman who has found himself in that place below and sets out to find out why he is there--along with all manner of other famous and not-so-famous people. But there's a deeper message about humanity that's both satisfying and poignant. I'll be picking up more of Butler's

Someone once said that the problem with sensational journalism is not that it is not journalism, but rather that it is not sensational. Reading through this book, I thought of a new way of phrasing the idea: the problem with experimental novelists is not that they are not novelists, but that they are not experimental.This could have been a truly imaginative piece of work. When I picked it up, I was looking forward to all the grossness, horror, and enslavement of Dante's Inferno, but updated with...

holy crap this was terriblenote to literary world: Pulitzer winners still need editors to tell them when their work sucks balls. note to Pulitzer winners: don't waste our time (or, hell, your own time), not to mention the bajillions of trees it took to print the book, with self-indulgent, idiotic work like this. note to R.O.B.: your sense of humor is downright embarrassing, yo(had to read this for class)

Don't be turned off by the number of lower reviews of this book. Most people don't like it cause its "depressing." I have to say that most literature is depressing and if you don't want to read about reality stick to reading Romance novels are the stuff that scruffs by these days as "bestsellers." This novel is inventive and fascinating. A quick read and definitely one of the best books I've read in a long time. This is number 75 for the year so that should say something.

Lives up to the intriguing premise. I found the novel to be strangely satisfying despite the fact that all of the characters are languishing in Hell. Would make a nice companion read to Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman.

I'll summarize. This was an excellent book. The premise is awesome. I don't want to share too much to avoid spoilers.The basic idea is that the main character is a journalist who has died and gone to hell, and is now a Evening News in Hell anchorman. Oh yeah, and he's co-habitating with Anne Boleyn. Right, the Henry the 8th Anne Boleyn. The author has cooked up some seriously demented "punishments" for the various denizens. You may consider this a modernized Dante's Inferno if you wish, but that...

First off, thanks to the good people at ARCycling and to Mariela O. for getting me this book. Free books are always a cause for thanks, regardless of what I end up thinking of the book itself. In this case....well, my reaction was just incredibly ambivalent. Robert Olen Butler is apparently a Pulitzer-Prize winning author, but at least in this case I didn't see what all the fuss was about. There are a few laughs throughout this work of satire, but on the whole its cynical view of human nature ju...

You know the old joke: if you go to hell then you'll be so busy shaking hands with all your friends that you won't have time to worry? That pretty much sums up this story. But of course being dead in hell in this story is probably just a metaphor for life as we know it. This slim book was surprisingly difficult to get through. All the famous denizens: J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, Anne Boleyn, etc., were cliches of the popular versions of these characters. Snore. Their individual tortures were...

Not impressed. As a matter of fact, several times throughout the book, I was reminded of the title whenever I considered how many pages were left. I only stuck with it because Mr. Butler is a Pulitzer Prize winner (although, not by the standards of this book, in my opinion) and the premise is interesting, just not well done. Anyway, I can't recommend it at all as I barely finished it myself.

New Yorker capsule review got my attention. The premise alone is great - a newscaster in hell does a series of celebrity interviews - just one question: "Why Do You Think You're Here?"Perversely profound, though we are lured into the novel at the prospect of being a voyeur of someone else's eternal damnation, Butler leads the reader quickly to contemplate the source of all suffering.In the opening scene Hatcher McCord, the narrator and anchorman of the Evening News from Hell, describes a televis...

Not what I was expecting AT ALL. It had its moments in the first 50 pages, then it just went downhill for me after that. I skimmed and jumped around and was never genuinely engaged. I guess I just missed the point.

It's weird. There's a lot I disliked about this book. I sometimes felt like sections were disconnected or random. I thought inner dialogue went on way longer than it should. I skimmed pages at a time. But I did really like the premise and the imagination behind this story. It was fun to picture this weird, quirky hell.

If you look at most of what I enjoy reading, you’ll understand that every now and then I need a dose of comedy, and this ingenious satiric three ring circus fit the bill well. As with Dante’s Inferno, there’s precious little plot: this one’s mostly about the sightseeing, and much of the entertainment of this book actually stems from the seemingly endless variety and ingenuity of such special punishments, which make Dante look like an amateur. William Randolph Hearst blogs without recourse to the...

If Hell were a 79¢ microwavable burrito it would come in the green wrapper and it's flavor would be mild.I bought this book when it first came out, having excited myself over the synopsis. A snarky, adult, pop-culture referencing trip through Hell? That's so up my alley. I had started it immediately but according to the old receipt-turned-bookmark I only made it to page 40. What had happened?Probably not by coincidence, it was around page 40 on the reread that I realized why I dropped Hell the f...

Butler is funny as Hell while asking the Big Serious Questions. The more familiar you are with Dante, the better this novel. I knew right away, on page 2, I was going to like the book when one of the first denizens introduced was "George Clemens, inventor of the electric hand dryer for public restrooms." Actually, everyone seems to be there, all the best people. The protagonist, Hatcher McCord, died a big-shot TV news anchor and now headlines "The Evening News from Hell." He lives with Anne Bole...

Hell by Robert Olen Butler (pp. 232)Hands down, one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. A surreal comedy set literally in Hell with deceased fictional journalist, Hatcher McCord as our tortured, philosophical tour guide who happens to be the current anchor for Evening Nightly News of Hell. Based on Dante’s Inferno with pieces of Jean Paul Satre, Waiting for Godot, Picasso at Lapin Agile, Dennis Miller, CNN, Entertainment Weekly and your high school history books all beautifully merged in...

I'm only giving it 2 stars for the idea and themes. Really, it deserves 1 for being written so poorly. This guy won a Pulitzer Prize? I'm surprised he has even made as a writer. Let me give you a tip, Mr. Butler: never write in the passive voice! "He is thinking" should never be written. Every other page had something written in the passive voice and it drove me nuts. It was hard to concentrate. I also get what he's trying to do with the thought process being run-on sentences, but when it goes o...