A review by jessrock
The Bird Is a Raven by Benjamin Lebert

1.0

Can I give this zero stars? I received this one for free from a publisher's mailing list. There is no way I would have chosen this book otherwise, let alone read it - I think I only stuck with it because I wanted to be able to tell people about how comically bad it is. The book is about two young strangers who meet on a long train ride; the narrator of the story actually spends most of the novel listening as his traveling companion tells an elaborate story-within-the-story about the reasons he is on this train, fleeing Munich for Berlin. The traveling companion reminds me a lot like the narrator from [b:The Perks of Being a Wallflower|22628|The Perks of Being a Wallflower|Stephen Chbosky|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1363910637s/22628.jpg|2236198] - a wide-eyed observer who feels and sees (and talks about) too much. He talks about hanging around with his two older friends, both of whom have extreme psychological issues, and his tale culminates with the extremely large male violently attacking the frail, anorexic female, sending the boy fleeing for Berlin. The whole book is written in short, choppy sentences that are tiresome by page one, and I have to agree with the Amazon review that calls the book "aggressively boring." If anyone asks me what the worst book I've read all year is, I'll have the answer ready!