I finished Cost, by Roxana Robinson, over the weekend. I am going to wait until next Monday, the date of the next EDIWTB book club, to post my review of this intense book.
In other news, the FTC issued guidelines today that say that bloggers much disclose when they have been provided goods or money in exchange for posts. I will avoid getting into a philosophical discussion of the role of bloggers in Web 2.0 and the nature of true word-of-mouth communications, and will simply note that I do receive a lot of free books, and that I don’t think the fact that a book was a review copy has ever affected the content of any of my reviews. But, to comply with the guidelines, when I post reviews or otherwise write about a book, I will be sure to note where and how I got it, and whether or not it was free.
Here’s a book that’s out of my usual domestic drama comfort zone. It’s called Everything Matters!, by Ron Currie, Jr., and I read about it in the July Indie Next List. Here’s the summary from Amazon:
In Currie’s curious second novel, a young man nearly succeeds in his attempt to inject meaning into a doomed world. A mysterious voice has accompanied Junior Thibodeax all his life, having chosen the moment after Junior’s birth to tell him that a meteor will destroy Earth in 36 years. The voice also tells him secrets about his father, his girlfriend and his brother, as well as providing a cure for cancer and sage advice against bombing a federal building. From modest beginnings, Junior descends into violent insanity before finding himself lifted to a position of supreme importance. But even with his foreknowledge, the prophet cannot win every battle, and the ones he loses are more than sufficient to break his heart. Currie shows an appreciation for whimsical storytelling, leaning on unlikely chains of events and multiple perspectives to tell what could otherwise be a very dark tale, and though the omnisciently narrated portions come off as heavy-handed, the big decision he makes toward the end recasts the story in a strangely hopeful light and lends a pile of emotional currency to the book’s title.
Gwen at Literary License, who writes some of the most thoughtful reviews around, said:
Everything Matters! is full of fallible humanity, swinging wildly between moments of hilarity and deep tragedy, and maintaining a quick pace throughout. Even setting aside the book’s end-of-the-world premise, several key plot twists strain credulity. The oversaturated whirlwind that is Junior’s life will delight obliging readers and disappoint those preferring a more credible story. The quite brilliant final section of this novel demonstrates how everything we do does, in fact, matter and, at the same time (as revealed in one, final, bizarre plot twist), does not make a damn bit of difference.
Alicia’s Blah Blah Blah said: “I finished Everything Matters! in two besotted days, and I’m in that stunned afterglow full-feeling, teary-eyed reverie of having read something so wickedly funny; so crazy ass absurd yet so profoundly moving/heartbreaking and so oddly but overwhelmingly uplifting. Ron Currie Jr. just blows it out of the park (baseball being a major player here) in oh so many ways.
Sounds like a pretty interesting book – different from my usual fare. Have any EDIWTB readers read this one yet?