A review by cornmaven
The Goat by Anne Fleming

1.0

Clearly I was not the target audience for this book. I just didn't get it at all. The main protagonists are all adults; their stories stand front and center. Kid and Will are kind of on the edges of their orbits, never fully developed. They both have a briefly mentioned and briefly exhibited personal issue with which they must deal, Will's being the more serious. They both have a coming-of-age experience, but we really don't know much about them, and so it felt very false to me. We do however, know a lot about Jonathan, Joff, Kenneth, the goat, and even Kid's parents. Why would kids care that much about a bunch of grownups? It felt to me like the whole thing got flipped somehow.

And what's the deal with the goat? Was it an amazing metaphor for something? Or just a quirky thing about Kenneth and his dad? I have no idea, and I don't think many kids will figure it out, too.
The end was not satisfying in the least, although Fleming tried to make it so.