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4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 WILLIE AND JULIO SING BACKUP Mar 24, 2010
By Red Rock Bookworm
Okay, so everyone else reviewing THE FRIDAY NIGHT CLUB is reminded of everything from The Hangover or High Fidelity to The Breakfast Club and How I met your Mother. My foray into the pages of Jacob Lurie's semi-autobiographical tome called to mind a plethora of images ranging from Ocean's Eleven (the protagonist Davis has his own personal "rat pack") to I Love You, Man as well as the writings of Albert Camus and Kierkegaard. Now don't say," What, is she nuts? What do Camus and Kierkegaard have to do with some over-grown adolescent standing at the alter ready to wet himself at the thought of actually committing to one woman for the rest of his life?" For that matter, what do they have to do with drunken parties, wild Vegas jaunts and women, women, women you ask? Well both Camus and Kierkegaard were basically existentialists who believed that the individual was solely responsible for giving their own life meaning and living that life passionately in spite of obstacles..........and boy are the characters in this novel into that philosophy.
THE FRIDAY NIGHT CLUB's chief protagonist Davis Robertson and his old college friends have come together in the four days preceding Davis's marriage to Pamela and go into "full court press" mode in their attempt to reminisce about and re-live situations from those good old days of their youth (you can almost hear Willie and Julio singing "To all the girls I've loved before" in the background.")
The discourse is liberally peppered with "F" bombs and the flashbacks into the "buddies" questionable histories and their stories, while amusing in parts, are definitely not for those easily offended by the things that naturally occur when guys are with guys............... like a lot of swearing and overt references to sexual encounters. This is definitely a buddy book, however I feel that young women would probably find it not only amusing but could potentially use it as an instruction manual for understanding and coping with the male psyche.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 Too Funny to Miss Jul 13, 2009
By Susan M. Malone
Davis Robertson stands at the precepice of a great abyss. Before him, the death of his youth. Behind him, the insanity of that youth. And in the middle, the love of his life, soon to be banished for good.
But The Friday Night Club isn't your run-of-the-mill coming-of-age story. Davis is way too self-effacing to be caught up in angst. His defense is profound thought. But it's cloaked in such split-your-sides humor that those insights come to the reader later, once the tears of laughter have subsided.
The Friday Night Club is laugh-out-loud funny, even during the sad, tragic, painful, insightful points. I guarantee you will never forget it. I LOVED this book.
6 of 7 found the following review helpful:
Couldn't stop reading! Jul 31, 2009
By D. Leitzel
Living in Denver I enjoyed the ability to follow the characters around through the majority of the scenes. But the characters themselves are phenomenal! They're almost too over-the-top sometimes to be true but their flaws turn them into believable people, including Peter. The more I was drawn into their lives the more I could identify and developed a compulsory need to find out what would finally happen in the end. Excellent book!
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Reviewed for Midwest Book Review Jun 03, 2010
By Christy Tillery French
"reviewer/writer"
Although Davis Robertson's getting married in a few days, he finds his mind dwelling on past loves and friendships. As he hangs out with his best friends and groomsmen, Davis relives past experiences with these men, former college mates who formed The Friday Night Club, which was nothing more than a party club. Although Davis loves his fiancée, his thoughts keep turning to the one woman he never really had, a woman he's always held in high regard but never pursued. He fears committing, fears an uncertain future, but tells himself it's time to grow up and move forward. While partying with his friends, Davis vacillates from being certain he wants to marry to doubting his commitment to his fiancée.
This quasi-autobiography isn't your typical bachelor's last fling, although there are the quintessential drunken parties, humorous scenarios, assaults and ultimate arrest. Although couched as a coming-of-age story, The Friday Night Club goes beyond that, delivering poignant, profound insights into the struggling mindset of a young man as he passes into adulthood. Lurie skillfully pulls his reader into Davis's angst, his at-times conflictual relationships with his Friday Night Club partners, his earnest yearning for something he thinks is unattainable. This intriguing book doesn't limit itself to men; women will enjoy the read as much, if not more.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Insightful Male Misadventure May 14, 2010
By Kara J. Jorges
"Avid Reader"
Davis Robertson doesn't seem to take anything in life too seriously, especially his impending marriage, so when some of his closest friends come to town for his bachelor party, it's only natural for all hell to break loose.
I started this book feeling for sure that I was in for a ride much like that in "The Hangover" or "Very Bad Things." While certain elements were the same, this book had a lot more emotional depth. Though the timeline is rather jumbled, tying events together, rather than running a chronological thread, it's fairly easy to follow the exploits of Davis and his buddies from their college days up to the day of his wedding. Though Davis earns a degree and becomes a teacher, it's hard to picture him taking any part of his life seriously, as he focuses mostly on memories of parties and affairs past, and creating new memories of the same for the future. One of his friends is a regular guy with a wife and family that he values, but another is a womanizing movie star. Davis himself gives his famous friend a run for his money when it comes to a lack of morals or restraint, however. In the end, after a very wild bachelor party, Davis sobers up and reaches an epiphany, and has a very tough decision to make regarding his future, and we're left with the impression that he might finally have begun to grow up.
While I appreciate the author's unflinching honesty about male behavior, I couldn't help but feel a great deal of distaste toward Davis. Quite bluntly, he's a self-serving user with no regard for the impact his actions will have on others, particularly if they're women. I didn't care much for his rigid fiancée, Pamela, either, and simply could not understand what kept this couple together. Davis spent most of his time reflecting on other women from his past and present, as he cheats on Pamela constantly, and Pamela felt like more of an obligation than someone he really wanted to be with.
By the end, I found myself harboring an intense dislike for Davis. Why did he bother to propose to Pamela if he wasn't ready to settle down with her? The minute they got engaged, he seemed to suffer a prolonged panic attack, referred to most of her half of their conversations as yammering, and apparently looked upon a future with her as one of imprisonment. The fact that he reached an epiphany about his selfish behavior in the eleventh hour did not impress me, as I believe he should not have bothered proposing to someone until such an event occurred. If this is the way men are, I can do without them, thank you very much. Gender does not preclude an individual from decency.
My personal feelings about Davis aside, this was quite an amusing adventure, filled with colorful characters. The jumbled timeline is not my favorite plot device, but it works here. This book was many things, not the least of which is somewhat of a romance novel told very much from a man's perspective, and is worth the read simply for the insights.
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