Palo Alto: Stories

James Franco the actor somewhat transferred to James Franco the author in this book.
Fun, unexpected and sexy as he explores Palo Alto youth and their "extra curricular" activities out of home and school.
This book certainly caught me by surprise.
It was a jog back memory lane from my high school days, as I was a misfit myself.
I read it in one day and that tells you that I didn't put it down, definitely a page turner.

Bottom line is, I enjoyed it. Buy it, laugh and pass it along :)

I purchased Palo Alto Stories because I had read an article in Vanity Fair magazine written by James Franco on how he prepared for his role as poet Allen Ginsburg. The article was so well-written that I was hooked by the first sentence. The article was to the point and flowed so smoothly that it never once lost my interest. I had seen Franco in several movies and was [unfairly] surprised that an excellent actor was also an excellent writer. I was curious, so I purchased his book. I found it, once again, extremely well-written, and would have given it an A-plus-plus if I had been a professor [I am a former editor and reporter]. It is a deeply insightful book easily portraying the thoughts and lives of a certain group of adolescents, some troubled, some just curious. However, for me, this book resulted in the purchase of another: in one story a boy talks of the children's book "The Rainbow Goblins". Franco's young character discusses this book with his friend in such a manner that I wanted it for my grandchildren. I purchased it and we all love it. As Franco wrote, it is a beautiful book with a nice story. [One of our grandchildren also zeroed in on the blue goblin's bare bottom.] Two excellent books, thanks to one Renaissance man.

Rubbish! This book seems like an excuse for Franco to talk about penises, booze, smoking, sex, drugs, sex, penises and a little bit of vagina. It's vulgar, racist and misogynous. There were no real distinguishing thoughts or actions that defined each character or story. Most stories were so random that it was impossible to figure out where the hell Franco was going with it! Save your money and time and pass this one up.

I was very pleased with the condition I received the book in! It was as it was advertised.
The book itself, I haven't completed reading, but I'm enjoying every word of it. It's a little confusing to get into at the beginning, as each chapter is like a short story for someone new, but they really take hold and Franco's words magically take you to that place.

I definitely recommend giving it a burl!

I found this book so riveting and raw. James Franco did an excellent in being able to tell these stories through the perspective of the teenage mind (male & female). It makes you wonder if HE actually had some of these experiences because they are so detailed. Not only is he a great actor, but he's also pretty good author.

The stories are dark and indicative of the teenage years. This book brought me right back to my teens, and made me remember exactly what it felt like to have all of those "over the top" emotions about everything. It's not for the faint of heart, and may shock and frighten you if you are a parent, but it is one of the best collections of short stories of this type that I've ever read. James Franco once again proves that his talent isn't just skin deep.

James Franco can write. Some really good short stories in this book, and some really really really good ones. Beware though, this isn't bunny rabbits and rainbows, this is Bukowski, this is Kerouac, this is Thompson, this is some great stuff. Enjoy this book with a nice warm spliff and some whiskey.

Set in the early 1990s, this haunting and well-written collection of interconnected stories centers around the lives of Palo Alto's more ambivalent high school students, youths wholly consumed by their own sexual frustration, self-loathing, guilt, homophobia, and unrequited love. Readers will find James Franco's lean writing style honest, raw, and reflective of the scattered thought processes of your garden-variety angst-addled teenagers struggling to find meaning in their lives. The actor/filmmaker reveals himself to be a versatile artist. Using terse language, Franco succeeds in depicting bleak and realistic situations besetting a generation enveloped by nihilism, decadence, longing and desire. These stark and tragic coming-of-age tales will linger in your mind long after you've finished them.

Already being noted as an amazing and dedicated actor and filmmaker, the prominence of James Franco continues to rise for his versatility, with his novel, "Palo Alto" becoming a prime example of that. Franco's stylistic choices captures the attention of the audience with a blunt and unapologetic tale on what it is like being an adolescent through his explicit and adventurous short stories. His imagery in the novel revitalizes the forgotten mischief that often occurred in our youth, opening a wave of nostalgia to the readers.
Taking place in Franco's hometown of Palo Alto, California, each of the short stories are comprised of various teenage perspectives, recalling the impetuous journeys many faced living in the town. "Halloween" depicts the harsh reality of being misguided and indulging in dangerous vices, "American History" vividly elaborates on the transition and on the power of aggression and peer pressure, and "Jack-O" breaks down the distinction between today's youth in society and the society from a couple hundred years ago, each all establishing different themes yet taking place in the same setting. In "Yellowstone," the narrator, Chris, leaves the readers questioning the truth of what happens in scenarios we don't fully get to witness throughout our life. These first-person narratives grasp the audience's attention from the beginning to the end, dealing with a variety of emotions throughout the story. In these twelve short stories, there is no doubt about the fact that at least one character will leave some sort of influence upon us. For some, Franco's piece of literature is seen as unequivocally honest and youthful, while others may see it as unappealing and distasteful due to its amount of explicit content.
Although Palo Alto involves a lot of harsh content, its imagery displays a vivid portrayal of the impulsive and treacherous acts of teens, which the mainstream media in this decade seems to play down. Being a teenager consists of being irrational and believing every reckless act is the end of the world, and Franco's stories make a prominent exhibition of this actuality with the jarring event of Ryan's automobile wreck, Teddy's uncontrollable frustration and the mishaps that Marissa gets herself into.
In spite of the fact that the novel has been released for nearly a decade, and with the film adaptation of the book, these short stories continue to depict the visceral and selfish based reactions people in their adolescence experience as well the struggle of transitioning into adulthood.
James Franco reveals the actual existence of living life as a teen in Western America, with dangerous vices, compulsion, and temptation being our only problem, regardless of our financial and ethnic background. Franco gives the readers an opportunity to dive into the mind of an adolescent and discover the conflict with growing out of being a child and becoming an adult.

James Franco is a marginally talented actor. Beyond his work in Freaks and Geeks, though, I have not really been a fan. When I saw this book at my local library, however, I thought it would be an interesting read. When I saw that he obtained his MFA at Columbia and was taught by none other than Amy Hempel, I figured it had to be decent.

I was wrong. So wrong and Palo Alto: Stories is now only the second book I have voluntarily not finished.

The stories are feeble attempts at expressing adolescent angst but end up being boring, trivial and trite. It's Bret Easton Ellis without the scathing social commentary. It's a number of nondescript stories with interchangeable, cliched and totally unlikable narrators.

I have read better stories in lower level creative writing courses. If James Franco wasn't James Franco, these stories would rightfully be gathering dust somewhere far far away.

Not worth the time. Certainly not worth the purchase. One of the worst collections I have ever read. Stay away.

`Palo Alto' is a collection of short-stories from Golden Globe winning actor, James Franco. Franco, as well as being an actor, artist and soon-to-be Oscars host, studied writing at Brooklyn College. `Palo Alto' is the accumulation of his studies, and a life spent growing up in the Palo Alto area. . .

I admit that I wouldn't have been interested in this collection of short stories if they weren't penned by the (hunky) Franco. I've liked him since `Freaks and Geeks', but especially for his winning portrayal of James Dean in a biopic. More than that though, I quite like actor-author books; Steve Martin and Dawn French amongst my favourites. So I was willing to put my crushing on Franco aside and give his first literary foray a read and earnest review . . .

All of the stories are all set in Palo Alto, a Californian charter city. At its worst, the stories are along the lines of Seinfeld's `a show about nothing' . . . random snatches of nothingness amidst the mundane, with healthy doses of teen angst and selfish shenanigans.

But then some of Franco's stories are more akin to the E4 `Skins' storytelling. Set in a fairly disinteresting town, Franco tells tale of drunken teen hijinks, with dark undertones (from a careless teenagers' hit and run to a girl witnessing a boy's beating death at a house party).

It's that sort of anti-Gossip Girl aspect of teen life. Not dissimilar to `Skins', in that the stories are about an ordinary American town, with ordinary American kids doing ordinary (if hair-raising) things. There's a lot of truth here, told in a stark and cold manner.

But while reading `Palo Alto' I couldn't help but think James Franco's work is a little self-indulgent. Sometimes it's startlingly obvious that Franco is just a recent literary graduate whose favourite book is J.D. Salinger's `Catcher in the Rye' and he's trying to write a pale, contemporary comparison. Some of the `Palo Alto' stories do read like the English 101 homework of an angst-ridden Emo teen. And it's a shame. Because if these weren't frayed short-stories with only the Palo Alto setting to connect them . . . if Franco had an actual plot to revolve these characters around, he could be great. If there was a plot-trigger, something to kick-start these mundane snatches of life, then Franco could be like the next Donna Tartt - writing about young-adult mundanity with dark undertones.

As it is, `Palo Alto' is a glimpse at what James Franco can do, but not his best work. I think that will come later, and with plot.

I like reading books before seeing the movies so I picked this up. I noticed all the terrible reviews on here, but I thought people may be harsher because it is James Franco. Plus, there is a movie being made so it might not be totally worthless, right?

I was wrong, this book was a complete waste of time, I could barely get through half. The stories were not deep or meaningful or funny. It read as if it were written by a college student for a creative writing class and if it wasn't James Franco this book never would have been published.

If you are looking for a book to read and want short stories, check out BJ Novak's "One More Thing"

I get the feeling that Franco's literary influences are about the same as those of the author Luke Hartwell, but whereas Hartwell does extraordinarily original things in his fiction, Franco does seem like a copycat, as other reviewers have said. I wish I could talk to Franco and suggest he read Hartwell's Atom Heart John Beloved. I think it would help him see where he could be better. I did enjoy the varying first person points of view. That is hard to pull off. Faulkner did it, but, um, the comparison between those two ends there. It's okay. I doubt if it would have been published if he wasn't James Franco, but obviously a lot of his fans are enjoying reading his stuff, so I do admire him for putting himself out there and taking the criticism he must have known would come.

In terms of fronts in the ever shifting culture wars, actor/ intellectual -- and now author -- James Franco's short story collection, Palo Alto should be pretty weak tea. That hasn't stopped critics from taking up sides declaring this debut alternatively "delectable" and "too true" (the pro-team) or featuring characters described as "mere sketches" and one who "felt the urge to grade it. And not highly" (the anti).

I'm retreating from the field. Perhaps I'm copping out (or just being honest?) by admitting that I can't separate this actor from his collection. Let me just say that these stories are, at best, uneven. Some declare as such it wouldn't have been published but for Franco's fame, but examining debuts(where uneven is more the rule than the exception), this is plainly not the case. Undeniably, other don't receive such close attention, either from those who want to denigrate or those heaping on profligate praise (Perhaps they fantasize about invitations to posh parties? Optioned novel?)

Franco studied in several top writing programs. And it shows. His eye for detail is excellent. He crafts fine, sparse sentences. This, however, doesn't make up for these stories emotional monotony; one after another they recount angst ridden teenagers suffering the tragedy of suburban life. In and of itself, this isn't bad - teen angst is rich soil to plow - but here it's been farmed to dust. Characters become undifferentiated, indeed, interchangeable.

Had Franco included a sampling of the best of this collection with other differently themed works - surely other people live in this zip code with richer emotional contours - Palo Alto could well have been excellent. In "American History" a boy assigned to defend slavery in a high school debate foolishly engages in over heated rhetoric seeking to impress a girl, and in so doing reveals much of the racial strife that still lurks below the surface. And angst. "Lockheed" offers a meditation on growing up and what it means to be good at something. And, of course, angst.

Even as Franco seeks to increase the energy of these stories with more and more helpings of bloody violence, these too become over used, becoming indistinguishable as his characters. While there are plainly signs of potential here, one can only hope any future projects will include greater variety and depth.

The stories in this book are about rich punks who get wasted and destructive. It's dark and demented. I did like the story Tar Baby, and I thought the author's writing was very good. I think I'd have liked it more if there some redemption to the stories. I guess it's a good thing James Franco left Palo Alto. I remember it as a very nice place. Apparently, it was boring to him.

The book reminded me of Perks of Being a Wallflower--on steroids. It's not a waste to read but hard to get through because of subjects. I hope James Franco continues to write. Maybe his life since high school has given him better material.

James Franco, a well known actor, filmmaker, and upcoming author, writes his novel Palo Alto about teens who struggle with their journey to self discovery. Throughout the book, there are short stories that range from many topics: teens who fall in love, who commit heinous acts, who party every weekend, or who become addicted to drugs. The short stories are told from the perspectives of different characters.

I would strongly recommend this book for all age groups. It is an emotional, thrilling, and engaging book that allows readers to understand the life of a teenager and why they act and think the way they do. Although it is fictional, it is informative. Near the end of the novel, you will discover that there is a theme that unites all of the short stories and is also a common theme in our lives. Alas poor Yorick.

Lockheed left me with a strong feeling of pity for Marissa, a feeling I prefer not to feel, and which can be hard for me to feel. This begs the question of how James Franco got me there. This is how ...

From the opening paragraph we learn that Marissa's situation is that of an adolescent girl who is not free to pursue her independently chosen values, and growing incapable of identifying them. Though she excels at mathematics, it is a chore, which she pursues at the insistence of her father who "does math all day". We learn that she is not popular in high school and has a very limited social life so that her only friend is her gay cousin, Jamie. In the opening we also learn that she doesn't announce her mathematical excellence to peers, and therefore, it may not be the case that her social life suffers because she is great at math, and it does win her a prestigious summer internship at Lockheed Martin. Her overbearing father seems to have good intentions with the unfair ascetic life he imposes on his blossoming teenage daughter: to work together one day with her. The oppression by her father, however, is the key to her low psychological state.

Her job at Lockheed consisted of watching film of a seldom dynamic subject, the moon, in a cold room without a view, looking for rare mistakes, for 40 hours a week. The boredom leads her to begin to draw prolifically but mostly violent and sex related subjects. Her overall assessment of this activity: "I drew hundreds of pictures and they were all bad. I wasn't good at drawing. It was also a little sad to draw so much because I could see everything that was inside me. I had drawn everything I could think of. All that was inside me was a bunch of toys, and TV shows, and my family. My life was boring. I only had one kiss, and it was my gay cousin Jamie."

Marissa is a girl utterly lacking excitement in life at an age that should be centered on exploration, curiosity, the adventure of self-discovery, and the glory of learning according to her interests and talents. Yet she is a girl who has become very reluctant to look inside herself, and therefore, in danger of atrophy. This is reinforced by an oppressive father who condemns her to a regime of almost monkish asceticism in the epitome of the ivory tower which is Mathematics. She seems to be a girl floating further and further away from the glories of reality. The saving grace of her reality seems to be her talent and genuine interest in drawing; this seems to be the clue to her future happiness. Yet she suffers from low self-esteem and judges herself a weak artist. Typically, with the right encouragement, she could become an excellent artist, as she is still young enough, and she exhibits a budding passion.

However, to add to her torment, her boss at Lockheed, Jan, crushes her artistic passion with his own cynicism which consists of the premise that an artist is doomed to failure and frustration, as he shows her his own drawings from youth, which are but futile, faint echoes of a roaring passion that was silenced too long ago. "I did these when I was at school. I wanted to be artist. But it was no good. It is no good to be artist. I practiced every day, eight hours a day. Then I could draw like Michelangelo. Then what? There is already Michelangelo. I realized there was nothing more to do. In science, there is always more to learn. Always more." These are the words of a man who never deserved to be an artist because he never learned the sacred and personal life-giving fuel that an artistic soul gives to itself in the process of bringing his vision into reality for his own eyes to see.

She is transformed into a girl whose only conscious longing is to gain social acceptance, one of the hallmarks of pseudo-self-esteem. The next reminiscence that Marissa shares with us is at a Fourth of July Party at Katie Hesher's house, Marissa's first high school party. Marissa is still innocent; beer for her still tastes like "thick, frothy urine". At the party she gets acquainted with a handsome, rebellious boy, Ronny Feldman. Ronny got kicked out of a couple of schools and is now condemned to go to a special education school, due to fighting and reckless behaviour. "He was wearing a white T-shirt that was thin from being washed so many times. The neck was wasting away. His arms were thin but muscular. They had all these old scars and bruises on them. He had short, straight blond hair and a cherubic face, with a perfect nose. He was so handsome, but also like a little boy and dangerous." She is innocent and falls for him too easily. Given her development up to that point and the circumstances of her boring existence, it is easy to understand her attraction to this bad ass, as he represents danger, adventure, and excitement, not to mention, he would surely be the type of boy her father would disapprove of.

But more than this, he seems to appreciate that she is intelligent, a virtue that she is ashamed of. And just as he names this fact, which is the point at which she falls in love with him, he is taken away from her abruptly. He is taunted to get into a fight with a Latino guy with whom he has history. It is a big spectacle and it is sprinkled with eroticism for Marissa: Ronny, true to his nature, exhibits his virility in his fighting efficacy, and takes off his shirt, as do his partners in this fight, and it also rains, which adds to the beauty of these young impassioned boys. To reinforce this, Ronny and his friends win the fight and chase the Latino crew away, Ronny for the fleeting moment a hero in Marissa's restricted universe.

And then it happens.

Ronny is returned to the party on the hood of an SUV and is dropped on the street outside, badly beaten. The truck drives away but soon returns to run over and kill Ronny. Marissa is left screaming in torment. When questioned by the Police she is still fixated over Ronny's identification of her intelligence. It is clear that she will be scarred by this tragedy for a long time. And to make the effect just a touch more pity-inspiring James Franco adds that she was not invited to the funeral because no one knew that she was the last person Ronny spoke to. In conclusion James Franco summarizes the rest of her summer and her psychological state in compelling and poetic prose:

"I worked at Lockheed for the rest of the summer. I didn't draw anymore. My parents could tell I was sad, but I couldn't tell them why. I couldn't even tell Jamie. I didn't do much but watch the moon. It floated there, on the films, reverberant. I began picturing Ronny's face in the moon. My face was there too and he was kissing me. Whenever there was a scratch on the film it would pull me out of the daydream, and I would mark it down."

Undeniably touching.

i think that despite what most other reviewers say that these are pieces of extremly well written literature. that is, until you get to the ending. i was able to really get into these stories until they reached the end. when it got to that point they just stop abruptly. these arnt so much stories as they are quick glimpses or memories about some degenerate kids. and i guess theres a place for that. its a pretty gritty and honest book. and theres a few good insights. i dont think franco should quit writing and stick to acting like all the reviewers on this website are saying, he just needs to master this craft. learn to write endings man! and ill buy your next book if you do that. the only stories that are really great are the 1st two. and the others are okay. i wouldnt reccomend buying it, but if a friend or someone owns it it would be worth borrowing and reading.

An examination of youth spent in a northern California town, Palo Alto, the debut short story collection of James Franco, traces the lives of a group of teenagers as they experiment with adult vices (drink, drugs and more than a little casual violence), struggle with their families and each other, and succumb to wanton self-sabotage and destruction.

The stories collected in Palo Alto certainly don't provide hope for the future of American civilisation; the young citizens of Palo Alto seem to be perpetually bored and, all too often, fatally stupid. In `Halloween' a feckless youth, amped up by the thought of beating up a rival, kills a woman while drunk driving, but even that doesn't shake off his ennui and in a matter of years he has managed to forget completely the significance of that particular stretch of road. In `Killing Animals' a wannabe gang of toughs roam the streets vandalising anything that doesn't move and shooting, either with a slingshot or a BB gun, anything that does: "We shot animals and people. But they were all small animals and we didn't kill anyone."

None of the characters portrayed in Palo Alto are particularly sympathetic, but `Lockheed' introduces us to the best of a bad bunch. Marissa is, much to her own consternation, a maths whizz and is awarded a summer internship at Lockheed Martin. Tasked with viewing old film of the Moon in order to record blemishes and splices in the film, Marissa instead spends her days doodling and daydreaming until she is finally invited to her first high school party.

For a debut collection Palo Alto is a pretty good ode to the grubbier side of suburban life and contemporary American adolescence. James Franco has done a fair job in thinking up original characters and establishing interesting premises and he is certainly a competent writer. These stories were written as coursework pieces for Franco's MFA Creative Writing programme (he's a very busy fella) and they do come across as being rather studied and contrived. It's not that they are bad stories, not at all, just that they seem rather self-conscious and deliberately styled in the manner of authors such as Bret Easton Ellis.

The other major shortcoming of Palo Alto is that, although each story is narrated by a different character, they have all ended up with very nearly the same voice. These are characters, male and female, local and newcomer, differently educated, from different socio-economic backgrounds, and so their stories really should be noticeably different in tone. Neither of these issues completely spoils overall enjoyment of the collection, but they do detract from the individual themes and meanings of the stories.

Palo Alto will no doubt appeal particularly to fans of James Franco, but it is worth a read by anyone who enjoys contemporary short stories, and it will be interesting to see what Franco follows it up with.

I guess I am not sophisticated enough to understand why this book got the rave reviews it did. I found it boring. So you have some short stories about, kids, who have no morals, no values, no direction, and no purpose. Was I supposed to care about any of them? Was I supposed to blame society for their behavior? Well I did not care about anyone in the book, and was thankful that the book was short.

So many readers have written so eloquently (much more eloquently than Franco) about how meandering, pointless, and pedestrian this collection of short stories is that I can't add much. However, I should note that as I struggled to deal with Franco's awful prose I kept being reminded of Patrick Swayze singing "She Rides the Wind."

This book is boring. It states the obvious. Every sentence is short. This book is blue. It has letters in it. It is written by James Franco.

Do you like writing like that? Well, great! Then you will love this book. I guess the book isn't the worst I've read, but I just get bored and almost nauseous over the rhythm of the sentences. It is so insanely repetitive that I had to take a lot of breaks while reading it.

I also hated how Franco wrote from the perspective of children. I feel like it is a total cop out because he could write as juvenile as he wanted and it would be pulled off because the stories are in first person. Franco, just because you say "dweeb" and name random television shows that teens liked in the 90s doesn't make this seem remotely legitimate.

Three things quickly become evident when reading James Franco's short story collection 'Palo Alto' (2010). First, that Mr. Franco has attended a number of creative writing classes. Next, that Franco writes well on a line-by-line basis; lastly, that 'Palo Alto' would have absolutely no chance of being published were Franco not a talented, world-famous actor, a spokesmodel, a sex symbol, and a celebrity.

The essential problem with the 'Palo Alto' stories is that Franco really has nothing to say; in terms of plot, he has only one, which all the stories are a variation of: a mentally-sluggish and emotionally stunted young person has a violent encounter, and then drifts on with his or her life.

Even the most prototypical of these stories, which may be the opener, 'Halloween,' is not interesting or engaging on any level. On Halloween night, a young man on his way to confront his girlfriend, who he believes is becoming involved with other young men, hits a woman with his car, but drives away. Ten years on, he remembers the accident whenever passing the location where the hit-and-run occurred, but later still, thinks of it only as an afterthought.

On the page, Franco's voice resembles a confident combination of early John Updike and middle-period Raymond Carver, while the bitter, sardonic ghost of Bret Easton Ellis hovers just out of sight.

When and if Franco has something substantial to say, he may become a writer of considerable talent. At present, however, 'Palo Alto' serves as a limited window into Franco's mind and little more. As such, many of his fans will want to read the book, but as fiction of weight and merit, the volume fails completely.

In light of Franco's recent extremely high media profile, readers who dislike the book shouldn't rule out the possibility that Franco knows 'Palo Alto' is poor and has pressed to have the book published for inscrutable reasons of his own; it may be that Franco has viewed the book's entire publishing cycle as a test of his personal power or merely as 'performance art' of a different variety.

I found little to like in this collection of short stories. Each seemed to be packed with scenarios designed to produce shock and emotion, with very little substance to back it up. The characters were shallow and poorly developed, as were the stories. Instead, form was replaced with the vulgarity I have come to expect from those from the entertainment capital of the world, Hollywood. Cat poop soup mixed with urine just isn't my idea of literature, and neither is a vivid, raw description of an adolescent boy's emissions. Please. This book found its way to the trash can quickly, and seems quite at home there.

Despite what these other reviews have said, I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was exciting, unsettling, and often left you wondering. I enjoyed a look inside the lives of teenagers that I had never seen before, not even as a child. If you want to learn about what kids do when they don't want to go home, you can learn a lot here.

I also thought that many of these stories could have been from Franco's own life, which made it even more interesting to me. It's a fairly quick read, as I finished it in 2 days. Certainly worth your time and money in my opinion.

I was recommended this book by a friend and because I love James Franco as an actor and heard about all the degrees he's been getting at the prestigious universities he's attended, so I decided to give it a read. Worst decision of the year. He's no Oscar Wilde that's for sure, but he's not even Stephanie Meyer! These stories are pointless and boring. I would expect just a little more from someone who's as educated as him. I'm 18, I admire James Franco and I still don't like them. You can't say that younger readers will get a better experience out of it because most people in my hall have tried to read it and they can't get passed the first couple of stories without being bored to tears. I get his angle, but it's just not working.

And with the recent news of Franco getting a professor fired for giving him a D in a class and then publicly humiliating him for it, I'm almost positive that most of those "rave reviews" came from his pocket someway.

Stick to acting Franco, don't let writing tarnish your reputation.

This book should be read by every aspiring writer as an example of how quickly fiction can turn to self-indulgent, masturbatory, soulless drivel when written without any deep sense of conviction and spirit and only for fame and self-gratification.

Rating: 3.875* of five

The Book Report: Sixteen short stories about adolescent life in upper middle class America. The author hailing from there, he's written about Palo Alto, California. It could as easily be Cedar Park, Texas, or Rockville Centre, New York. The stories are very much in the vein of adolescence itself, working the same nerve in me as adolescents do: Getting drunk, getting high, hooking up, wondering if you're the only one, being ostracized, being Too Cool for School, realizing you're filled with rage but not knowing why or what you're raging against.

My Review: I hear people say their high school or college years were so great, so amazing, The Best Years of My Life, and I think, "What planet are YOU from?" I hated adolescence, and I still do. Clearasil and hormones and emotional devastation. Ugh, no thanks, I been there and feel lucky to have escaped at all, though certainly scathed.

So why read this collection of explicitly adolescence-themed stories? Because James Franco is an artist whose work I find really compelling. If you haven't watched 127 Hours, do. This man isn't just another pretty face, he's got what the Finns call sisu. (Google it, the explanation would take too much space in a short review.) The Academy Awards show he couldn't pull off, but movies yes, and writing yes.

His writing is very good. It's not tricky, or show-offy, or self-conscious. It's direct and it's clear and it's nuanced. He uses words the way cops use fingerprint powder, to show you the shape of his ideas without getting you all greasy with hand-sweat and forehead blood. Make no mistake, it's not easy getting words down to this level of fineness, it takes mental grinding and grinding and grinding until there isn't a lump or a clot or a chunk to be seen. Silky, smooth, sensually exciting as it flows past you to take coherent shape in front of you: Stories, people, goddamned annoying kids formed of smoke and ash and powder, living in flashes of lightning--your attention please, there is something interesting happening over here, and if we're lucky, this thirtysomething writer will give us more. Soon.

I have been oddly fascinated with James Franco ever since I first saw him years ago in a preview at the movie theater for Tristan and Isolde. When I first saw his face I recall feeling like I was being struck with an arrow, and he has remained on my radar ever since, often making surprising appearances in my subconscious and conscious psyche. I have seen most of his films, read what little there is about this elusive man online, and find him to be extremely interesting and gifted but I fear him collapsing in a heap from burnout and even depression. Where is his "off" button? He seems to always be "searching" for something, plunging himself into projects that often involve very dark roles and spreading himself way too thin with art shows, too many classes and intellectual endeavors. It is my humble opinion that what he is searching for and has been blatantly ignoring is his heart. All the raunchy, hard-core objectification of women in this book and most recently his pursuits in the gay sex lifestyle. It's quite obvious to me that what lies underneath all of that hardness is a deep-seeded fear and simultaneous longing for something soft, giving him permission to "stop all the futile searching". James, if you are reading this, you remind me of a hamster running on a wheel, running nowhere because you need to just STOP and FEEL YOURSELF, your heart; you disguise your sensitivity in your blatant, over-expression of all that is "alpha male". You my dear are so much more than that.

James' extreme sensitivity looms in the background of this book, popping up in little places here and there, when he describes the children's books, his love for April, or observes with great detail the features on someone's face. It also carried the underlying theme of, "I am a good person. Please think of me as a good person". I found this book to be highly personal and even felt like he was standing over me while I read it...a little spooky. Is it possible for him to be in two places at once? He IS such a wonder-boy. It is also my hunch that he was someone who was raised with very little, if any, structure; a boy who was given far too much freedom and became hugely overwhelmed (due to his high sensitivity) which lead to all the numbing out (emotionless sex, drugs, etc). Where in the *&%$ was his mother? Can I be your mother?? This thought loomed in my head as I read this book. I give Palo Alto a strong four stars, my reason being that felt like it was a pure, mostly unguarded expression of things inside of HIM. He is a very talented artist who needs to stop denying/avoiding his softer side before he loses all that fantastic mojo. When he does, I think there will be 5 stars for him everywhere.

James Franco does not want to be considered an actor. He wants to be considered a polymath and an "artist." He is enrolled in something like six highly prestigious graduate programs, including one for filmmaking, one for fiction, one for poetry, one for design, one for creative writing, and a couple for English literature. You would think this would qualify him to write a book.

But there's a problem. The planet's brightest students have to crawl over broken glass to complete one of these graduate programs. How is it possible that Franco can do six at the same time? There are several possibilities. Maybe Franco really is the second coming of Leonardo da Vinci. But here's a line from one of his short stories: "The building is beige, but the shadows make it shadow-color." So maybe not.

It's more likely that Franco is riding some sort of grotesque wave of snowballing prestige, one that attempts to shield him from his quite evident averageness. It's been said that his classmates feel protective of him. In other words, they like him, they're charmed by him, they're pleased to have him in their midst, and they want to shield him from the fact that he's in a million miles over his head.

Franco is unique, but in a totally typical way. He is the cartoonish example of the high-achieving young person who takes 15 AP classes and does 20 extracurriculars in order to look impressive and gain status and admission and acceptance. But it isn't possible to do that many things with any sort of skill or competence. The result is a book that is so vapid and soulless and contrived as to be hard to look at.

For those giving Palo Alto horrible reviews: I don't think you seem to get the point.

Franco wasn't trying to be the next Hemingway, Miller, Bukowski, Vonnegut etc. with his debut, Palo Alto Stories. He simply was trying to take an undeniably interesting (though not-so-original) premise of teen angst in a suburban setting (and told through different members of a certain group of "friends" in each story) and make it his own. And for that, I definitely would say he succeeds. The individual stories don't necessarily have a solidified beginning, middle and end... But, in reality, how many of our life stories truly do? Real life isn't that clean cut, and Franck tries to represent this, succeeding in putting the sometimes disgusting, sometimes beautiful, sometimes grotesque reality-based drama on the page.

He might not be the most talented writer out there, but he legitimately presses us with each story to confront the reality of every kid he shines a light on. This was a solid effort, and being a voracious reader of Young Adult fiction, I can say that I truly enjoyed the book for it's display of teens trying to find their own way, growing up and growing older. I wouldn't recommend it to you get children, but definitely to kids in their mid to late teens. It's a good read, and an entertaining one at that.

I had the experience (I had originally typed "pleasure" but I realize that would be dishonest of me) of reading Franco's "Into the Black" (re-named "Jack-O" for the book) in Esquire during my final year as an undergraduate creative writing major. Reading that story, knowing it had been published in such an esteemed magazine by an unknown writer, was like being punched in the face by someone wearing a large high school ring on each finger who had recently completely his lavatory hygiene with that same fist.

The "black gaping gap" line is missing from the book, however the prose maintains the choppy, voiceless, faux-80's-minimalism of that piece throughout. I recommend to anyone considering a purchase: go online, read "Into the Black." If you love it then hey, good for you, James has a fan. If not, don't bother, unless you are like me and feel the need to masochistically go through it all with a red pen.

Franco is a fine writer if your standards are "Creative Writing Intermediate Class." These stories would not have wowed me in an advanced or master class and they certainly do not merit publishing. It is an insult to writing students everywhere to see this in print, especially lauded by Amy Hempel and Mona Simpson (those endorsements almost made me cry). It is clear that if, like the rest of us, Franco had taken a four-year program, he could emerge as a decent writer. However his experience is slapdash and copycat and it shows. I have read far, far better stories by my peers and it is beyond frustrating knowing how hard they will have to work to ever see their work as exposed as Franco's. I cannot believe that Yale has accepted him as an English PhD student.

On a side note, a friend pointed out that Franco's name is the same size as the title on the front cover, and we all had a good laugh.

In all seriousness, I really did enjoy this book. While it may seem like it was written poorly to some people. I thought it was perfect. The stories in the book are all pretty fantastic. I could not put the book down and I read it pretty fast. It was highly enjoyable, graphic, detailed, disturbing, and funny at-times. It could become a cult classic sometime in the future when it becomes well known, but right now, it's underrated and it's excellent. Franco, I'm ready for more books!