All About Lulu
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''All About Lulu'' is a coming-of-age novel by American author
Jonathan Evison Jonathan Evison (born September 27, 1968) is an American writer known for his novels '' All About Lulu'', ''West of Here'', '' The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving'', '' This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!'', '' Lawn Boy'', ''Legends of the N ...
published in 2008. The novel revolves around a family of bodybuilders in Santa Monica from the
Summer of Love The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. ...
to the Dot-com bubble.


Plot summary

In the wake of his mother's death, as his bodybuilding brethren pump themselves to Hulkish proportions, weak-eyed vegetarian Will Miller stops growing altogether—until the day his father remarries a relentlessly kind grief counselor, delivering Will a troubled stepsister who soon becomes his confessor, companion, and heart's only desire. But when Lulu returns from cheerleading camp the summer of her fourteenth year, she inexplicably begins to push Will away, forcing him to look elsewhere for meaning.


Themes

Major themes in ''All About Lulu'' include self-improvement, family, unrequited love, obsession, the American dream, talk radio, and meat.


Reception

''All About Lulu'' received a starred review in Publishers Weekly (5/12/08), who called the book “a stunner—viciously funny and deeply felt.” In subsequent reviews, including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Seattle P.I., the novel was compared both favorably and unfavorably to J.D. Salinger's '' The Catcher in the Rye'', and Vladimir Nabokov's ''
Lolita ''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humber ...
''. In addition to being selected for the Los Angeles Times and Seattle PI summer reading lists, All About Lulu was selected for numerous year-end "Top 10" and "Best of" lists, including Hudson, and Time Out Chicago, and won the 2009 Washington State Book Award.


Film Adaptation

* All About Lulu was optioned for film in 2008 by Crossroads Films. The film rights to two earlier novels, Welcome Avenue and The Ray of Hope Foundation, were also optioned in 2008, to actor/producer Joseph Cross, and Streetgang Films, respectively. Projects are in various stages of development.


References


External links


Jonathan Evison's website
2008 American novels American bildungsromans Novels set in Santa Monica, California {{2000s-bildungsroman-stub