Shoplifting From American Apparel

By Tao Lin

A funny autobiographical tale about growing up in the digital age, from a groundbreaking author whose writing is “reminiscent of early Douglas Coupland, or early Bret Easton Ellis” (The Guardian)
 
This autobiographical novella is described by the author as “a shoplifting book about vague relationships,” and “an ultimately life-affirming book about how the unidirectional nature of time renders everything beautiful and sad.”

From VIP rooms in hip New York City clubs to central booking in Chinatown, from New York University’s Bobst Library to a bus in someone’s backyard in a Floridian college town, from Bret Easton Ellis to Lorrie Moore, and from Moby to Schumann, Shoplifting from American Apparel explores class, culture, and the arts in all their American forms through the funny, journalistic, and existentially-minded narrative of someone trying to both “not be a bad person” and “find some kind of happiness or something.”
 
“Tao's writing . . . has the force of the real.” —Ben Lerner, author of The Topeka School

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Dec 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9781612190280

Reviews for Shoplifting From American Apparel

[bravenewbks · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I did not like this book. I thought the cover looked interesting. I checked it out from the library but then I wished I had not. While I was reading the cat jumped on my lap. His back claw accidentally scratched me but it did not draw blood. The cat looked at me with a neutral expression. I looked back at him also with a neutral expression. Then I kept reading even though I hated the book. My boyfriend walked by and sat on the couch. He turned on the TV. A man was screaming loudly at a police officer. The police officer did not scream loudly. I stopped watching and tried to get to the end of my book. The cat sat on my Kindle so I could not read for a while. The cat walked away. I got to the end of the book. I deleted it from my Kindle with a neutral expression even though I was irritated.

This has been a Review in the Style of the Book (TM).

Actual excerpt from this book: There was a thing on the table and Sam touched it.
"What is this," he said.
They touched the thing and looked at it.That is the end of the discussion about the thing; no, you do not ever find out what the thing is. A grapefruit? A brass monkey? An alien? A gob of ear wax? All of the above?

And so, I hated this book. Do not read it.

[kirstiecat · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm getting the impression that if you like one Tao Lin book, you'll pretty much like them all but I don't know as if they are quite as dramatic if you read them back to back. It throws you ajar to read them at first when you've been reading novels with safer and more traditional writing styles attached, for example.

In any case, one thing that helped me connect less to this main character was how flippant he was about all these girls and female relationships..well, maybe not so much flippant but incapable of forming a long lasting attention..even possibly incapable of making sincere and emotional facial expressions. I did like the connection of the main character wanting to write a story that basically became what is Eeeee Eee Eee.

Oh, and this one takes place in NYC vs. mainly Florida so there's a slightly different vibe there. Also, I liked the ending quite a bit.


p.s. Yes, they are just inanimate objects but shoplifting was so post-yesterday.


Favorite quotes:

pg. 19 "Oscar Wilde said that a genius is a spectator to their own life, to the point that the real genius is uninteresting."

pg. 78 "I just want to be crying in someone's arms."

pg. 97 "I have an idea or something," said Sam. "We should start from very far away and then run toward each other and then give each other high fives jumping in the air." "Let's do it," said Audrey beginning to stand. "No wait," said Sam. "It's better just to think about it."

[inaudible · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

He wasn't really thinking anything, he thought.

[kougogo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think it is easy to misread Tao Lin's body of work as 'depressing' or 'puerile.' This to me at least this is Lin's most fully realized extended work of fiction yet - it's funny, precise, perceptive and bright-eyed. It is easy to relate to. Also, I'm not sure what it has to do with 'Fox TV' or 'Beavis and Butthead'

[kidzdoc_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Reading this novella after finishing a wonderful novel was the literary equivalent of eating a Pop Tart after a five star dinner. The narrator of this autobiographical novel is an aimless twentysomething with the maturity of a 12 year old, who works in a vegan restaurant and gets caught shoplifting from American Apparel, then is caught shoplifting again. The characters and dialogue are quite puerile, and even though it is only 103 pages long, I skimmed the last half of the book. Recommended only for fans of 'Beavis and Butthead' and Fox TV.

[wunderkind_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I loved Lin's Bed: Stories, I liked his Eeeee Eee Eeee, and I said "Meh" at his poetry collection, you are a little bit happier than i am. But I was still excited for this novella to come out, which is why I bought it new. But it's very disappointing, which is why I want my money back.Tao Lin's favorite subject is twenty-something malaise and existential angst (i.e., laziness and apathy), but he has a sense of humor so that makes it okay (see Eeeee Eee Eeee). And sometimes he combines the humor with insightful comments and a simple but effective writing style (see Bed: Stories). But sometimes he crawls up his own butt, decides to forget about style or characterization, and just basically publishes transcripts of conversations he has with the boring people in his boring life. Or at least that's what it felt like reading Shoplifting from American Apparel. I get what he was going for--conveying the sense of what it's like to be a lazy, apathetic young person in a world that doesn't really care what you do and doesn't even bother to punish you for being a waste of space--and I guess he was actually successful, but in doing so he just comes off as being a really lazy writer. And I wouldn't just assume he was being lazy except that his poetry and some parts of Eeeee Eee Eeee are the same--his lack of style is his style, but the lack is felt too strongly here. His characters are like robots: they make short declarations of empty phrases, tend to repeat words several times, and stare at each other a lot. And nothing happens. I understand why, but that doesn't make the book any less boring or disappointing.The last two sentences are good though; it's like Lin thought of them first and then half-assedly wrote a book to lead up to them.

[jphamilton-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I fell victim to a STAFF RECOMMENDS card for this book. After having written these cards for years and years, one finds oneself overly-curious for whatever excitement a staff member is trying to share about a book. The bookseller's words (the card even had a snappy little drawing) caught my eye and I went for it. While it wasn't that bad, in all honesty, it really wasn't all that good either. The writing is strange enough at times that it kept my interest, but once I closed the back cover — it just wasn't satisfying.