Reviews

I feel like the author is trying to say something really meaningful here about living life to its fullest and resigning yourself to your fate rather than moaning about the shitty hand life has dealt you or whatever. But it all falls apart when he introduces time travel, nonsensical conspiracy theory, terrorist plots, an unhealthy obsession with baseball, and all sorts of totally groan-worthy nonsensical plot twists. Every character in the book is not just talented and amazing, they are THE MOST TALENTED AND AMAZING PEOPLE in their given field. The brother is the most amazing baseball player, the main character is the smartest person, the dad is just an all around great guy (who has anger issues, but it only shows up when he's mad at someone we root for him to beat up). Every character has to have some extreme trauma in their past. The writing blurs the line between engaging and self-indulgent mess, and ultimately falls hard into the latter category. Seriously, at the halfway mark this book falls apart to such an extreme degree that it's like the author suddenly had a stroke or something. What a massive pile of garbage this book ends up being.

sticklecat's review

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hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

lisawhelpley's review against another edition

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3.0

Not my usual type of book - a bit of science fiction to it. Great characters, and good writing.

coonsrc's review against another edition

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4.0

ought this on a complete whim not knowing anything about it (I’m a sucker for pretty covers) and could not put it down. It is the story of someone who knows exactly when the world is going to end the moment he is born. As you can deduce from the title it deals with the questions of what matters in a world you know will end in 36 years. I highly recommend it if you are a fan of The Catcher in the Rye and the final act of 2001: A Space Odyssey

tracyk22's review against another edition

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4.0

A fast-paced roller-coaster of a read, proving Newton's Law as applied to relationships. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And everything does matter. The build up of the book seems to be more intense than the ending, which tends to lose steam, but if you like something more than the traditional novel give this one a spin.

meghan111's review against another edition

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4.0

How would you live your life if, in utero, you received a true prophecy that the earth would be struck by a comet in 2012 and the human race would become extinct? This novel explores that question with Vonnegut-like writing and with sympathy for all of the characters. A couple things didn't work for me, but there are a lot of great scenes, such as when the narrator meets his future girlfriend, which happens to take place at school on the day of the Challenger explosion.

scheu's review against another edition

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3.0

I really loved God is Dead and as a result I really wanted to love Currie's new book. The end of the world? What's not to love, especially when I've read so many end-of-the-world books?

You'll ask yourself "does anything matter?" as you read this, because you pretty much HAVE to ask. 90% of the story leads you to think that everything does matter, because the main character ignores the voices in his head, ostensibly saves humanity from destruction, reconnects with the love of his life, and so on. The last 10% - where the voices start on this multiple-worlds track and the main character relives his life in a much happier way - didn't ring true for me. Maybe I took home the wrong message. My message was 'however miserable you are in this life, however hopeless it all is, at least one of your multiversal selves is happy'.

I imagine that everything DOES matter in the repsect that you can change people's lives for the better, but when it comes to extinction-level impacts, you're just screwed.

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