An amusing satire of self-discovery in the form of a madcap misadventure tale.
A college junior literally loses his life and must find a new one in this debut magical realism novel.
After a raging party in his fraternity the night before, Doug wakes up to discover that his life, which he keeps in a Tupperware container, has spoiled after being unceremoniously left out of the fridge all night. Things quickly go downhill from there when his stereotypically hot-but-dumb cheerleader girlfriend, Sarah, dumps him, and Doug knows it will only get worse for his much-prized social standing if his frat brothers discover he’s become a lifeless loser. Thus begins Doug’s quest to “get a life” in this self-aware story that takes that expression literally. But where does one get a life? Gerrard explores this question in varied forms but always with a bent toward the ludicrous that nonetheless grows from an insightful seed of truth. Can Doug revert to his pre-college life or get a new existence at Walmart? Can he somehow re-create the one he lost? And if he accomplishes any of those options, will that really be the life he wants? Guided—or perhaps goaded—along the plot by the author (much to Doug’s fourth-wall–breaking annoyance), the protagonist seeks the advice of a Roma and is both helped and hindered by a cast that includes a young girl from an insane asylum, a troll with a trowel, and an invisible being sporting a pair of green pants. Pursued by vindictive frat brothers and afraid of being spotted without a life—especially by the nerdy girl on campus that he won’t admit he has a crush on—Doug traverses a landscape littered with allusions to similarly manic tales as he eagerly tracks and then recalcitrantly confronts the dreaded life lessons. Though the book never manages to match the cleverness of the material that inspires it, readers should still chuckle at Doug’s struggles and find much to enjoy in the character’s growth as he reluctantly realizes his story is one of self-discovery. But whether or not he’ll get a life in time to save his carefully manicured social position, Doug doesn’t know. As the author interjects early on when his protagonist feels a moment of optimism: Doug clearly didn’t read ahead.
An amusing satire of self-discovery in the form of a madcap misadventure tale.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: REUTS Publications
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
