Sterile cuckoo free download

The preciousness of it constantly made me question whether it was great literature or not, but, ultimately, it was such a relief to read a book written for readers and not so much for posterity. Though I think this book might have a good chance for rediscovery. I didn't want these blips to ruin the book for me, and they didn't. They just seemed odd to me.

The couple meet-cute at the bus depot where they are both headed off to their prospective colleges. Upon first sight, Pookie is smitten with Jerry. An extrovert without a censor, Pookie proceeds to tell Jerry her life story. From the sidelines, Pookie appears to be someone to admire because she goes against the grain and has a unique spin on life.

As a couple, her and Jerry look awesome because they are outsiders, their rebellious nature to be themselves in a world full of frauds and posers is empowering. A very hopeless place. Okay, exploitation is a harsh word, but it just felt they were both using each other in their own tragic, immature ways. Both had never received an ounce of real affection in their lives and so they were trying to fit some semblance of what they thought love was into their sad little affair.

Pookie was tragically needy to points of severe obsession there is a really unsettling moment where Pookie begs and pleads with Jerry over the phone to visit him during Spring Break. Jerry seemed to grow into caring for Pookie, but he still had a frat boy mentality, just that his was at a lowered temperature.

John Nichols does do a great job placing you into the wild and weird wilderness that is college. He pegs how unapologetically self-absorbed college kids can be and how they react to their first tastes of freedom away from parental hawk eyes vividly.

Anthropological it was, I could almost picture Nichols hunkering down behind a beer can fort, shielding his eyes from the beer spray, describing the habitats of the animalistic alcoholic undergrad with a clipped, documentarian voice. With these chapters I was reminded why I avoided the frat party scene like the plague in college and was hip to be a square who stuck to making homemade margaritas and sneaking them into the movie theaters with my college gal pals. Sometimes The Sterile Cuckoo was a joy to read other times it was a chore.

Nichols has spurts of great turns of phrases. But sometimes he got cute to where he was just throwing words just to see what stuck. I got some form of an answer during some unsettling scenes when her and Jerry spend a weekend in New York City. One point they are in a hotel room and Pookie is just rattling off incoherently, sitting wrapped up in a shower curtain one minute and pulling feathers out of a pillow next the scenes read view spoiler [manic.

My curiosity drew me to get nerdy and look up about cuckoo birds and how they could apply to the characters. The nest part interests me. So why the 2 stars? What I appreciated though was that Nichols decided to do something unexpected and unconventional with a romance story, crushing the idea of perfect first love into grainy little pieces and serving it without syrup.

View all 4 comments. Aug 31, Jim rated it liked it. This was a very different ballgame. The film and the book are very different beasts. The book, however, is narrated by Jerry and so Pookie is interpreted for us. In the novel, the story takes place over three years. This was shortened to a single school year for the film which was definitively a wise choice. Although too old for the part I can imagine a young Dennis giving a credible performance as Pookie Adams: fragile, quirky, offbeat.

Jerry Payne is nowhere near as interesting a character as Pookie. Jerry makes it very clear at the start of the book that he was far from bowled over by her. In the interim she writes long, semi-fictional letters to which he never replies but she refuses to take the hint.

It also allows time for both of them to grow. The thing is they seem to grow in opposite directions. As Roger Ebert put it in his review of the film back in When they're able to fulfil their needs simultaneously, they convince themselves they're in love. But making love is not the same thing as giving love, and the movie is about how they gradually figure that out.

It shouldn't take them as long as it does, but Pookie is so neurotically dependent that she hangs on much too long. And Jerry is slow. Stupid might be a better word. That neatly sums up the book too for all its differences. Apr 17, Tony rated it liked it Shelves: 20th-century-usa. Drawn in by the initial surprise at Nichols' verbal gymnastics and admirable concision in drawing characters, I soon began to tire of the characters themselves, and grew impatient with their immaturity.

He has probably drawn us an excellent likeness of his own privileged, misspent youth, though I suspect it was highly exaggerated. The love story he presents never has the thrill of actual emotion in it, though he tries, within the bounds of writerly restraint, to cast that spell.

The rampant sexi Drawn in by the initial surprise at Nichols' verbal gymnastics and admirable concision in drawing characters, I soon began to tire of the characters themselves, and grew impatient with their immaturity. The rampant sexism and racism of the early sixties is neither challenged or considered, as in so many books, and will date this book until enough time has past to allow us to look upon it as document rather than an entertainment. His writing is very good, his story basic, and his characters lack depth.

Jul 30, Jeff rated it it was ok. A not-great book with some really great passages. Nichols certainly can write, but spends too much time practicing not being able to write. I'm not exactly sure what the motivation of this book is: push idiosyncrasy to the limit, de-mystify young love, see how random a paragraph can get?

I'm not one to bemoan plotless books but, let me put it this way: if this were a treasure map, the elephant's wings would flap fart dust through the crayon blue sinkhole of Pookie's alarm clock.

Jan 31, Alan Dupay rated it really liked it Shelves: default. This is such a poignant book that I read it in just two sittings. And I'm even more impressed with how much I enjoyed this book inspite of being wholly annoyed with the main character's choices throughout the novel. Dec 31, Lily rated it it was ok. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.

To view it, click here. The book was NOT better in this case! That said, it was quite different from the movie. Jerry is such an asshole in the book. He is not the quiet, awkward, painfully shy co-ed who is bewildered by Pookie. In the book, he is hard-drinking, insecure, fratty, conforming, and a truly awful boyfriend to Pookie. Pookie is pretty much the same and the role Liza was born to play by the way.

It made me so much sadder for Pookie that she falls in "love" with this guy who barely even shows that he The book was NOT better in this case! It made me so much sadder for Pookie that she falls in "love" with this guy who barely even shows that he likes her much of the time. In the movie, she is outwardly more in love with him than he is with her, but the power dynamics aren't nearly as lopsided.

Also in the movie, she is totally lonely and a complete pariah. In the book, she has this roommate who she is kind of nominal friends with and she gets along with Jerry's alcoholic fraternity brothers in a surface level partying kind of way. In both iterations, Jerry is this savior for her because she was a deeply unstable and insecure person.

But in the book her obsession seems much more misguided. Pookie and Jerry are a complete mismatch and their relationship is incredibly tumultuous throughout. They have lots of sex, usually initiated by Pookie, fight at the drop of a hat, and Jerry generally can't figure out her long winded and poetic monologues.

But it never really felt like a loving kind of bewilderment like in the movie, but more judgmental embarrassment while feeling kind of shackled to her, every so often proclaiming "I love you Pookie Adams," even though he clearly doesn't.

How sad!! There were many many scenes that the movie left out. Several weekend-long frat parties, Pookie practically giving Jerry a concussion as she throws herself at him and he smacks his head on the train station platform, Pookie's senior year of high school where she gets in a horrific car accident leaving most of the passengers dead.

Most notably, Jerry drunkenly rapes her roommate!! Pookie suggests a suicide pact! Now that I think about it, the movie was so different from the book that it should really be "loosely inspired by the novel," instead of "based on the novel. It was so briefly glossed over, I suppose because the whole book is from Jerry's point of view and he didn't seem to think it was a big deal.

He is sloshed out of his mind and just climbs on top of Nancy Putnam. His explanation is so lame, "Pookie, please! I'm sorry! Come on, Pookie! I think the whole book is leading up to Pookie's mental breakdown and the suicide pact. Beneath Pookie's manic ramblings is a deep void that she unsuccessfully tries to fill with sex, Jerry's love, and feeling kind of proud that she is different.

There's a really sweet scene on a carousel where with each revolution, more and more children start flocking to Pookie and her horse and by the end she is holding them all rapt in some very Pookie-like story. Quickly though, this little moment of happiness and childlike innocence is snuffed out. In the end, she drops out of school and sends Jerry a suicide note.

Jerry and the reader don't know if she actually went through with it and he never sees her again. All of this said, it's a great skeleton of a story, and a great psychological character study.

But Liza Minelli as Pookie is a true work of art, and the way that the relationship is told on film is just better than in the book. Somehow I came across The Sterile Cuckoo, and it sounded intriguing enough between the sex and college love affair. Older literally really isn't something I read too often, since I'm far more apt to seek out a newer novel.

It's always good to switch things up, though, and switch it up I did! I don't know if it's because I'm used to reading modern literature compared to older novels say, pre's but old literature often feels bland to me and that I'm never that sucked in. The Sterile Cuckoo w Somehow I came across The Sterile Cuckoo, and it sounded intriguing enough between the sex and college love affair. The Sterile Cuckoo was unique enough to hold my interest, per se, but it was something I had no desire to plow through to find out what happened.

The book opens with Jerry Payne and Pookie Adams meeting at a bus depot, and she talks to him nonstop, even though he is not all that interested. She writes to him, he doesn't write back, then eventually the two do meet and thus blossoms a relationship. Pookie Adams is very strange and annoying, but at the same time it was very amusing. The book follows their relationship as it grows and goes on, and that's really it.

For the most part, nothing super exciting happens. What I'm trying to convey is that some aspects of The Sterile Cuckoo, while enjoyable, didn't make it a great read for me. While it had some parts I felt were good, overall it gave me a "meh" reaction upon reflecting if I liked it or not upon.

Afterward I rented the movie that came out a few years after the book to see how it fared, and the book was better. A film based on the book came out in , and while nice to sit down and watch, I felt was way too different from the novel. All the movie did was take the characters and put them in a relationship. Everything else that happened in the book was omitted, including the book's ending, which really irked me since, without saying what happened, is a really big and important part of the story to omit!

Enjoyed my review? You can find more at Devin's Book Hub. Sep 24, R. This is an odd statement from me but, the Movie was much better. Too bad there was no VW in this one. And the trip to New York was boring. May 24, Lisa Tangen rated it really liked it. Frankly, I enjoyed the movie of this book so much that I worried I wouldn't like the book. Those fears turned out to be unfounded. I liked the book as much as the movie. It gave a new perspective on the story and characters. Feb 20, Marie rated it did not like it.

Picked up this book in the laundry room. Jul 11, Willia rated it really liked it. Hopefully we will hear much more from Deleon. Hopefully Mr. Spielberg reads this. Mar 17, Laurie rated it really liked it. This book was riveting - so crazy and well told. Nostalgic, entertaining picture of college life in the 60's--makes Animal House seem tame.

The similarities between young adult relationships then and now are astounding. I enjoyed reading the erratic thoughts of the quirky protagonist, a strong female lead who is held back by social rules and oppression. Liza Minnelli won an Oscar nomination for this role, which was perfectly cast. Splendid writing. Docked a star for the casual racism. This was the first time that I couldn't find a book for le Nostalgic, entertaining picture of college life in the 60's--makes Animal House seem tame.

This was the first time that I couldn't find a book for leisure, not school at any nearby public or university libraries. This was a good find for me. I find I have this dilemma sometimes that I want to read something really and truly random, not in the sense of being avant garde, but in the sense of something I haven't heard of before and don't have any reason to read.

The other horn is that I'm always afraid it will be a waste of time, there are so many books I have good reason to think I will like. I won't always, but the point is both having a reason to read a book and not having a reason to read a book are bot This was a good find for me.

I won't always, but the point is both having a reason to read a book and not having a reason to read a book are both attractive at times. Long story short, I got this at a library book sale and picked it for absolutely no good reason and read it and liked it quite well. I don't think I would make any claim for it being very deep but it was a fun read and I got to have that sense of discovery that is always absent when just reading stuff that you know everyone knows is there. There's more mystery.

Not a whole lot to say about the book. It's the story of a relationship from beginning to end and was quite appropriate to my teenage life. It's always interesting to me to have become familiar with an author's work and then go back to read their first novel, as it was with Nichols' first work, the story of a likable college couple: Jerry and Pookie. They sure seem to have a lot going for them until they drink their relationship, and apparently themselves, into near-oblivion and oblivion, respectively though I'm not certain about the latter.

The characters are equally quirky, but the novel not as uproariously funny as his later wo It's always interesting to me to have become familiar with an author's work and then go back to read their first novel, as it was with Nichols' first work, the story of a likable college couple: Jerry and Pookie.

The characters are equally quirky, but the novel not as uproariously funny as his later works. A pleasant afternoon read out on my portale on a sunny spring day, but puzzling in that I have never really understood, despite being a physician, what it is about the "drink-until-I-vomit-and-then-drink-some-more" that meets peoples' needs. The book closes by making a case for the significance of early '70s formatting in light of commercial radio today.

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