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marioncromb's review
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
A very subjective rating for a very subjective review. I didn't like the book. It left me with a grimy feeling. Maybe that was the intention. It felt a bit like it was trying too hard to have a distinctive, edgy, narrative voice, which just invites an unfavourable comparison to e.g. Holden Caulfield in the Catcher in the Rye, or Alex in a Clockwork Orange, to which it inevitably falls short. I should have DNF'd this cos i wasnt really enjoying it, but I saw it through to the end, which at least tied together the strings of the plot fairly satisfactorily.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent, Mass/school shootings, Child abuse, Sexual content, Homophobia, Suicide, Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Murder, Excrement, Bullying, Xenophobia, and Cursing
eccles's review
4.0
This was funny, and, in the end, fun (he leaves you hanging until the bitter end). It’s a very black-comic farce, set in a small town in Texas, where our first-person protagonist, a 17-year old boy, is caught up in the search for someone to punish for a mass shooting at the local school. Given our increasing familiarity of this kind of horrendous event, I’m not sure what appetite there might still be for this kind of comic subject-matter; it is a bit of a lousy exit-wound of a joke, as Pierre has it, and might be problematic reading for many. But as a piece of extended humorous story-telling, it’s a great read. Granted, as you might expect in a comedy, the characters teeter on the edge of caricature, but I found a genuine affection in his writing of these people who muddle around or crash into poor Vernon’s life. Even the overweight, small town gossips who cluster around his mother in the midst of the crisis, with their broken diets and their petty pecking order, have moments of loyalty and bravery that make them admirable and likeable, if a little drole. If there’s a weakness here, it’s that drollery - the distance of an acute, but foreign, observer - that at times might feel mean for some readers. “Far aints”, Vernon’s mental note on Pam’s pronunciation, is very funny but not quite right for the brain of even this sublime fool. And maybe he spends a little too much time on his puerile preoccupations with underpants, even for the archetypical “lingerie”-obsessed teenage boy? I don’t know - never could figure out what makes things funny - but at times I wanted more of the boy than he seemed willing to write. In any event, his ability to sustain the grim and increasingly anxious humour over 300 pages is admirable. The narrative has some strange, and I think powerful elements. It’s a straightforward, linear tale, with a sort of physical as well as and moral progress, but the hero’s travels are peppered with the fleeting presence of totemic characters: I’m thinking of people like the truck driver in Mexico, who functions as a kind of guiding angel taking Vernon to his little slice of Brazil in a backwater near Acapulco, or the enigmatic figure of Lasalle at the end; as well as several of pivotal amoral characters, who don’t mean harm but just do harm as they get what they’re getting and you get in the way, who operate as the teeth on the wheel of fate that grinds Vernon down. Around all these characters, he spins a skein of cynical social commentary, on the Media, Justice and reality TV, that achieves a surreal comic completeness at the climax of the book. The success of the work, for me, is proportional to the relief I felt at the redemptive conclusion. Which was a lot.
ragne's review
2.0
I was disappointed by this book. I had heard much good about it,but found it irritating and boring. It did pick up a bit towards the end,during the trial, but the main character still annoyed me immensly. Why wouldn't he just tell his story in the beginning, and he wouldn't have to endure this whole ordeal!
The other characters are also very, very stupid. Som stupid that the entire story lacks credibility.
If not for some entertaining bits towards the end, this would have got just kone star.
The other characters are also very, very stupid. Som stupid that the entire story lacks credibility.
If not for some entertaining bits towards the end, this would have got just kone star.
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