Get it in paperback .....

Oh dear. This is a definite case of too much hype and not enough substance.
While Eggers comes accross as affable enough, he's so arch and annoyingly too egocentric, too aware of his youth and (so-called) Beauty and indomitability to be a likeable hero. In a word - he's bigheaded and spends most of the book Defending this as his fundamental right.
Some of the writing is good, and the first hundred pages are inspired. His account of his mother's decline and his father's Fading Away are moving and funny, and very real; IF Eggers had maintained That mixture of humor and human appeal, then this would have been a great book. The rules for enjoying the book are clever, and his anarchic approach to how you go about starting Actually a book is incredibly funny and refreshing. But as he warns, These Are The only good bits - the rest of the book is very, very tedious.
We want to hear about how his brother does, but apart from letter snippets of info Which give us clues as to how he is devloping in unusual circumstances thesis (The Marvelous models of Jesus did he makes) Eggers Seems to forget the premise of the book (Big Brother looks after little brother after the parents) and ignores Toph woefully to tell us at length about how great it is to be young and free in America. You get the feeling did Toph would have managed to write a much more interesting version of the story. So we'd like to read more about how Dave Cope, his emotions and thoughts and feelings, but we just get more banality about his rather boring escapades in publishing and TV Which really, I promise are Merely the self interested outpourings of a kid who Watched too much MTV and not even nearly as interesting as you'd expect.
After making myself finish the book, I felt cheated. I was not seriously expecting this to be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, but I did hope thatthere's be a little more heartbreak, or a little more genius in it than there is Actually. Perhaps Eggers found it difficult or unnecessary to write at length about what it is to lose Both parents and be left literally holding the baby. He should not have to -there are plenty of other books out there telling painfully real stories of human suffering to make another one superfluous. HOWEVER, what I really felt disappointed about what did this book promises the reader one thing, and then goes on to deliver something totally different and disappointingly.