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Favorable
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Daily Telegraph James Francken
Checkpoint is a bold, hectic, daring book.
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Favorable
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New York Review Of Books Lorrie Moore
Although Jay may never "lighten up," as Ben suggests, it is Baker's sensibility to allow his book to do so, letting it go wherever it's tempted; the narrative clowns around at intermittent intervals bringing its own light to the dark.
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Favorable
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San Francisco Chronicle David Kipen
[A] sly, slender but important one-act play masquerading as a novel.
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Favorable
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The Economist
None of this would work were it not for Mr Baker's fluency with dialogue.
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Favorable
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Ken Babstock
Checkpoint is like a hornet: It's small, quiet, with a sinister aspect to the drag of its midday peregrinations, and it has a stinger: conscience.
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Favorable
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The Independent John Freeman
Few writers have captured the texture and tenor of American speech as well as Baker.
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Favorable
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USA Today Deirdre Donahue
Baker makes you feel as if you are indeed inside the mind of a potential assassin. Whether you want to go there is your choice.
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Mixed
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Washington Post Jennifer Howard
Checkpoint reads like "Waiting for Godot" rewritten by the news staff of Pacifica Radio.
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Mixed
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LA Weekly Ben Strong
Because Checkpoint essentially is a two-man play, it suffers, as Vox did, from the limits of the spoken word.
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Mixed
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Los Angeles Times P.J. O'Rourke
The effect is of reading a play, specifically "Waiting for Godot."... On the whole, Baker improves upon Samuel Beckett's work. Baker's jokes will make people, rather than theater majors, laugh.
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Unfavorable
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Daily Telegraph Caroline Moore
What I did find frustrating were the glimmers of humour, irony and dramatic interaction between the characters, which flickered into life but were repeatedly snuffed out by streams of deadening waffle.
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Unfavorable
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Slate Timothy Noah
This time Baker really has created a work of pornography.
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Unfavorable
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Boston Globe Amanda Heller
What starts out strutting as edgy political agitprop dwindles into suicide-hot-line melodrama.
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Unfavorable
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The New York Times Book Review Leon Wieseltier
Like all of Baker's books, this one is much too close to its subject. This novel whose subject is wild talk is itself wild talk, and so another discouraging document of this age of wild talk.
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Unfavorable
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The Onion A.V. Club Keith Phipps
Checkpoint reads like a work written quickly for the moment, tapped out in a fit of pique.
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Unfavorable
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The Guardian Chris Petit
The book tries to be funny, but isn't. The controversy repeats the canny attention-seeking of Baker's earlier works. In this, Baker turns out to be as opportunistic as any thriller writer.
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Terrible
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Salon Charles Taylor
"Checkpoint" is a bad book and finally a spineless one.
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Terrible
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Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
What's most shocking about this gaga wisp of a book isn't the putative sensationalism of its silly, tasteless premise... It's that one of our most, sparkling, witty, and original writers has produced something so artless, clumsy, and stupefyingly bad.
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