Going Bovine

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Going Bovine
by Libba Bray
pub: Sept 2009
480 Pages

Synopsis:
All sixteen-year-old Cameron wants is to get through high school--and life in general--with a minimum of effort. It's not a lot to ask. But that's before he's given some bad news: he's sick and he's going to die. Which totally sucks.

Hope arrives in the winged form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel/possible hallucination with a bad sugar habit. She tells Cam there is a cure--if he's willing to go in search of it.

With the help of Gonzo, a death-obsessed, video-gaming dwarf, and a yard gnome who just might be the Viking god Balder, Cam sets off on the mother of all road trips through a twisted America of smoothie-drinking happiness cults, parallel-universe-hopping physicists, mythic New Orleans jazz musicians, whacked-out television game shows, snow-globe vigilantes, and disenfranchised, fame-hungry teens into the heart of what matters most.

The story beings with Cameron living in a small Texas town and hating it. The highlight of his day is smoking weed with his acquaintances in the fourth floor bathroom.

He "lives" with his dysfunctional family(not the quirky Michel Cera kind of dysfunctional the, "We never see each other and don't really care whats going on with you unless it affects me somehow." kind of dysfunctional) whom are extremely out of touch and have grown far apart.

To be honest, I was ready to give up on this book in the first couple of chapters. The writing is excellent but almost too good because Cameron's life is miserable and I was so empathetic and connected to him that I was just as miserable.

He has no real friends and only talks to his dad to ask to borrow the car. He's a loser even among the losers with no goals in life. But when he's struck with Mad Cow disease he's whisked away on an adventure of a lifetime. How sad is it when a fatal disease becomes the highlight of your life?

Going Bovine is from a first person perspective and we are with Cameron as his brain turns to mush from mad cow disease. In the beginning almost everything makes sense and besides a few confusing bits is a great adventure. As the story progresses things start getting stranger and making less and less sense - just as I would hope it would since his brain is deteriorating.

As the disease eats away at his grey matter, Cameron's perception of the world goes more and more askew. To help you visualize the storyline I've made this pie chart breaking it down into it's main components.

Chart also applies to movies directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Then there is the biggest question of all: Is this all really happening or is it just the disease making him crazy? Is there really a space time anomaly slowly reaching it's crescendo of destruction or is he dying in a hospital bed? I'm inclined to lean heavily toward choice number one.

In some ways, Going Bovine reminded me of Catcher in the Rye or A Clockwork Orange, and while I can appreciate the good writing in those books, can't say I loved them. Going Bovine, on the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed.

In the last 3 or 4 chapters everything is just a blur, which isn't a bad thing. The disease is eating away at Cameron's brain and his world becomes nuts, with the reader going along for the ride.

Everything felt like it was rushing by so fast that I couldn't really understand what was going on, but in those blurring moments all of those crazy puzzle pieces of plot points that didn't make sense throughout the book fell into place. I think all that knowledge being dropped Ba-Bam! is what made it all crazy, which made me feel like I was experiencing the madhouse right along side Cameron.

Ms. Bray is brilliant when it comes to her characters. They are original and memorable as well as quirky, odd, hysterical and loony. But I loved them all. Going Bovine is so entertaining I was blown away with how much I enjoyed it.

The writing is clever, the pace fast and I was turning pages well into the night wondering what weird and wacky adventure was going to happen next. There were times when I had to track down Alyssa, Gregory and/or my mom so I could read aloud. Some parts were so fabulous I had to share!

Going Bovine is funny, sad, and exciting. The ending was rich and full of hope. For anyone who likes a great adventure with crazy surprises and characters and themes that will keep you thinking about it for a long time, Going Bovine is a must read!

The Cover: Cow holding a Garden Gnome. What more could you want?

The First Line: "The best day of my life happened when I was 5 and almost died at Disney World."
I remember when I was 5 at Disneyland and all of those horrible giant versions of my favorite characters where all plotting to kill me! Very good first line, a real attention grabber.

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