Going Bovine by Libba Bray
This was another book I picked up because it was part of the library’s summer teen survivor contest. This one I enjoyed a lot more than the other one.
Going Bovine is about 16-year-old Cameron who is pretty disappointed in life and his family when he starts seeing weird stuff. At first he just ignores it or attributes it to some bad pot, but eventually it gets to be too big to be ignored. The doctors diagnose him with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, otherwise known as mad cow disease. The rest of the book is one giant hallucination (or is it?). He sees an angel who sends him on a mission to find Dr. X who can cure him. The mission takes him all over the southern United States and teaches him a lot about himself and his family. It helps him to come to terms with his disease and his coming death.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about this book until the very end. It was a little wacky. (But maybe that was the point?) But as strange as everything that happened was, there was a still an element of the real about it that kept you wondering if it was all in Cameron’s head or if only part of it was. It also had some pretty good lines – my favourite:
‘Yes. Putopia. It stands for Parallel Universe Travel Office…pia.’ Dr. O. breaks in. ‘We haven’t figured out the whole acronym yet, but we wanted to secure the domain name before anyone else did.’
Also, Cameron was reading Don Quixote in his English class at school just before he was diagnosed and I suspect there are many parallels between the two novels but I haven’t read Don Quixote myself so I can’t say for sure. (Can anyone help me out with that?)
The book was well written, funny, poignant and enjoyable. The only complaint I have is that sometimes there was so much crazy going on I found it a little hard to follow. I also suspect there was a ton of symbolism and such that I missed out on. I bet this would be a great one to discuss in a high school English class though…
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Colin, newly graduated from high school, has just been dumped for the 19th time by a Katherine. He’s never dated a girl that wasn’t named Katherine, not Kathy, not Catherine, just Katherine. After the 19th dumping, he’s a little depressed so his best friend, Hassan, takes him on a road trip. Somewhere in Tennessee, they are lured off the road by a sign promising a view of Archduke Ferdinand’s final resting place. Once there, they are offered jobs and decide to stay for a while. Colin, a child prodigy, spends his time working on a mathematical formula that will describe his relationships with the Katherines.
When I reviewed Looking for Alaska, I complained that the characters were too similar to the ones in Green’s other book, Paper Towns. Well, I didn’t have that problem here. This book was my favourite of the three. The characters were more real and more likable. Colin was endearingly neurotic and Hassan was funny and cute. And of course the girl, Lindsey, wasn’t actually anything special – which I liked. She was just a normal girl. I think that’s why I didn’t like the female characters from Green’s other two books, they were just too out-there.
The thing I love about John Green’s novels is the wit he brings to the story. If you were to tell the same story without it, it would still be an interesting story, but it just wouldn’t be as fun to read. I also like the way he tells a story – his writing style. He doesn’t have any fluff in there. It’s just a nice simple, flowing style. I can’t wait to read Will Grayson, Will Grayson.
Also, I just love the cover.
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Miles is off to boarding school in search of his “Great Perhaps.” Once there he meets Alaska Young – beautiful, smart, fun-loving and moody – and of course falls for her. Then something really bad happens and Miles must find a way to deal with it.
The book is divided into Before and After so you kind of know right from the beginning that something bad is going to happen. I think I’ll start with what I didn’t like about this book so I can finish off on a positive note. I have just recently read Paper Towns by the same author and while I did like Looking for Alaska better, I felt like the characters, especially the female leads, were very similar – too similar. I also have another of Green’s books sitting in my tbr pile and it makes me wonder if the characters in it will also be the same. I loved the characters in Paper Towns but finding them so similar in this book worries me that Green can only write one type of character. (We’ll see how the third book works out.)
Okay, now for the good. John Green can really write. I love the flow in his stories. I love the way he develops his characters and I love the wit he includes in his books. I found myself laughing out loud at the thoughts and words of his characters. I also loved the characters. I found Alaska to be a bit annoying sometimes but she was real. The story was also real. That’s why I liked this one better than Paper Towns. It was much more realistic. (I, myself, have never gone to boarding school so maybe it actually isn’t all that realistic, but it felt honest to me.)
All in all, it was a good book, definitely worthwhile reading. (As if you need me to tell you that, see that gold sticker on the cover? It won the Printz award.)
