You Shall Know Our Velocity

By: Dave Eggers

Narrated by: Dion Graham

In his first novel, Dave Eggers has written a moving and hilarious tale of two friends who fly around the world trying to give away a lot of money and free themselves from a profound loss. It reminds us once again what an important, necessary talent Dave Eggers is.

©2003 Dave Eggers (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Dumb and Dumber in written form. Good thing this was free.

I love The Circle which is why I thought I’d check out more work by the author. It says this was his first book. It seems like Beavis and Butthead on a random, pointless trio to go around the world and then one goes to a wedding in Mexico. I couldn’t get more than half way through before writing this. If there are good surprises, I’m afraid some should have been brought out sooner. The guy who has a messed up face with voices in his head is the lead character. His friend is just as weird without the face or voices.

A delightful listen

Really touching and laugh out loud at the same time. Eggers strikes a wonderful balance between serious and seriously funny here. The superb narrator never gets in the way of this journey, his subtle but well defined details of anxiety and sadness while looking at the world at large brings everything into perspective. Highly recommended! Especially if you need a laugh.

Holden Caufield travels the world

There were some really fun moments in this story, chasing donkeys and climbing trees, it makes me think of 12 year old boys traveling as adults.

That immaturity and naive fun gets old though when you are trapped in the angst ridden mind of the main character.

Dian Graham is not my favorite narrator and I think my annoyance with Will didn't help.

I enjoyed this book though, I think it's worth listening to, it's just not my favorite Eggers, which I think makes me judge it more harshly.

I really liked how this author views grief

It was hard for me to really get situated with the authors way of story telling but when you are fully in it, it is so realistic to the human condition. There are so many great men and women I know just as lost and confused and in a constant state of disbelief and you never know what to do with all those gross feelings. This is an example of what you do with those feelings no matter who’s point of view you are listening or reading from. Even reading a book like this is like a almost meaningless thing to do with your ooey gooey emotions, but when it’s over it’s rather meaningful, which I think is a perfect metaphor for how it feels losing someone.

I hated this book.

I don’t say I hated this book lightly. In fact, I’ve never said it about any other book I’ve read or listened to.
The story was ridiculous, the characters unlikeable and the performance lacked any variation between speakers.
The only positives are that it was free and I could (and did) increase the speed of the reading. Never have I been so glad to be done. It never got good.

Thin Premise for Novel Flogged to Death

Listening to this, I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, again and again experiencing the same events. I don't understand how the author didn't get bored writing this book, with its endlessly looping plot line. What made it worse is that the premise — two young guys randomly giving away a small fortune to people in poor countries — is interesting and thought provoking maybe for five pages.

Childish without the usual humour of Eggers

Didn't really enjoy it. Too many times it just felt like the main characters were children. I can't tell of the writing or the narration was poor bc too many times it was confusing if the main character was talking to someone or Kirsty talking to them in his head. I really loved egger's first couple of books but I've now read this and the circle and I think they will be my last from him.

Not good

I couldn’t get through this book so I’m leaving this review with the knowledge that I didn’t actually listen to the whole entire book.