2010 Alex Award Winner!
I'm not a big fan of apocalyptic novels (see Life as We Knew It), so this adult novel was a bit of struggle with me. Especially when the narrator started out in the womb. Let's see if I can remember all the books I've read lately with that concept....Conception....and I know there are one or two more out there that I can't remember right now. What this book did have going for it was its different construction. The main narrator is Junior Thibodeau, who is born knowing the world will be destroyed in thirty-six years. He also "knows" things about people and is truly gifted intellectually. But he also hears voices in his head. His mother occasionally narrates, as does his brother, who ends up being a star professional baseball player after recovering from cocaine addiction as a child. Yes, I said child. Add is a strong, silent father and a girlfriend who loves Junior in spite of his strangeness and you have an interesting character study.
I wasn't a big fan of the constant "you" in Junior's narration, but I understand what the author was trying to do. I just didn't like it. The book teaches a good lesson about how everything matters in your life, no matter how insignificant, but lessons don't go over well in my reading.
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