Go vs Mexico City blues: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Beats, Beat generation
Go
“"Last week I got the idea that the one aim of my intercourse with other people is to prevent them from noticing how brittle and will-less I have become," Paul Hobbes was writing.”
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Go is a 1952 semi-autobiographical novel by John Clellon Holmes. (Holmes referred to the book as a roman à clef.) It is considered to be the first published novel depicting the Beat Generation. Set in New York, it…
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Mexico City blues
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A series of poems deals with music, life, religion, literature, dreams and mortality.
Side by side
The verdict
- Ratings are close across the board — any is a safe pick by score.
- Mexico City blues has the widest readership — 3872 ratings behind its score.
- Mexico City blues runs the darker storyline; Go stays the lighter read.
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How to choose
Scores by source
| Go | Mexico City blues | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | — | 3.7 (3872) |
| Hardcover | 4.0 (1) | 3.2 (10) |
| Google Books | 4.0 (1) | 4.0 (3) |
| Apple Books | — | 4.0 (7) |
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Reception
| Go | Mexico City blues | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 1 | 3872 |
| Editions | 17 | 13 |
| Citations | — | 14 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | — | 3741 |
| Reading it now | — | 183 |
| Written reviews | — | 205 |
| Wikipedia attention | 411 | 395 |
| Pages | 311 | 244 |
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Questions readers ask
Which is rated higher: Go or Mexico City blues?
Go has the higher combined reader rating across sources (Go 3.8/5, Mexico City blues 3.7/5).
Which is shorter to read: Go or Mexico City blues?
Mexico City blues is the quickest read. Estimated at 225 words per minute: Mexico City blues (244 pages, ≈ 4 h 31 m); Go (311 pages, ≈ 5 h 46 m).
Which is harder to read: Go or Mexico City blues?
Estimated difficulty, based on era, reader shelves and length — Go: Moderate; Mexico City blues: Demanding.