First Impressions on "A Visit from the Goon Squad"

"A Visit from the Goon Squad" is a unique and magnetizing novel that has a strong power to relate to anyone growing up in this postmodern society. The characters are all well off financially, placing the conflict of the story into something deeper than a simple struggle for life. The characters of the Goon Squad are struggling to keep their heads and not to fall off the sanity wagon. While the characters are rich and have everything you'd think they desire, they still struggle in their pursuit of happiness. That's because the characters don't just care about financial success. Bennie, who has spent years in the music industry, both as an artist and a businessman, speaks constantly about how he thinks the music industry is going to hell, referring to the current state of media as "an aesthetic holocaust".

The characters in "A Visit from the Goon Squad" are all facing an existential crisis, each struggling to find a place in the world. This is reflected in Rhea's apprehensive view of the world and its inhabitants, when she observes people's behavior and then makes inferences about their lives based upon their clothes and actions. Rhea explains that the reason she sits on the sideline and observes people in this way is because of her freckles. Rhea desires to fit in with her punk rock group, but feels that that simply won't "work". When fans see her sweet freckled face in a hardcore punk group, with the predisposition that freckled girls aren't hardcore, she will be dismissed as a fraud. This is the postmodern dilemma: finding a place in the preconceived world.