2010 June 10 » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

Review: Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Posted by Anastasia on June 10, 2010 7 Responses »

Jun 102010

106. Going Bovine by Libba Bray
Publication: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (September 22, 2009), Hardcover, 496pp / ISBN 0385733976
Genre: Fiction, YA
Rating:
Read: April 23-24, 2010
Source: Library
Summary from Amazon:

All 16-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 a death-obsessed, video-gaming dwarf and a yard gnome, Cam sets off on the mother of all road trips through a twisted America into the heart of what matters most.

Review

So I’d seen this book around on the blogs a lot in the past few months, but I never actually took a close look at the cover or any of the reviews. This lead to my believing Going Bovine was a teen book about a girl who’s getting fatter and probably spends the entire book whining about it (the gnome totally looks like a lipstick when you just glance at it from the corner of your eye). Actually, it’s about a dude who gets mad cow disease and then spends the book going on psychedelic adventures!

So, yeah. Totally different story from what I first thought, which I learned when I actually READ THE SUMMARY. Ha!

Still, I wasn’t sure what to expect. From the start it seemed like a dark comedy sort of book– I mean, dying from mad cow disease? Totally tragic and yet…kind of ironically funny. (Maybe.) And it does have a lot of humorous things in it that made me laugh– the weird adventures Cameron goes on are both whimsical and hilarious. But it’s not only about the comedy! It’s also about human relationships, and about your relationship with yourself. And it’s also about love, and there’s even a satire about modern American culture with the cult that only lets its members think positive things (and they only drink smoothies, and they bowl a lot!), though a lot of the deepers aspects of the book tend to get smothered under the tripping-on-acid narrative.

You can’t trust Cameron’s narrative as being what actually is going on because there’s lots of flashes– TRIPPY flashes– where he’s in a hospital bed. And then there’s that whole question of “what is reality,” and if Cameron THINKS he’s at a snowglobe factory fighting evil snowglobe dudes, then it’s a valid form of reality and WHATEVER. Basically you spend the entire book wondering if things are real or not real, and it’s a very Matrix-y sort of book, actually. And! I liked that even when you’re questioning the story’s reality it’s still very obvious that even if Cameron ISN’T fighting evil snowglobe-makers he’s still going through a sort of spiritual rebirth, where he’s improving his inner person even as his outer person is dying.

I really liked Going Bovine. The ending– without giving away any spoilers although I suppose it’s pretty obvious by now– is surprisingly realistic although I did NOT want it to happen. I cried. Really.

The steady decline into a trippy-er and trippy-er narrative was really fun, although it’s got an edge of sadness to it because of the whole “my brain is decaying and making everything trippy” thing. I had a fun time reading Going Bovine, and now I really want to read more of Libba Bray’s books!

And

Get your own copy @ Amazon or IndieBound and support Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog!

Random sidenote, but I LOVE Libba Bray’s website! It’s stylish without clogging up my internet tubes. Very cool.

Also, if you go to the Amazon page you can see her do a video about her book while dressed like a cow.

Thursday Tea (June 10): The Pirate Queen

Posted by Anastasia on June 10, 2010 No Responses »

Jun 102010

Thursday Tea is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly. To play along, all you need is some tea, a book, and the answers to these questions: what tea are you drinking (and do you like it)? What book are you reading (and do you like it)? Tell us a little about your tea and your book, and whether or not the two go together.

The book: I’m actually reading two books right now, but one of them is for the Nerds Heart YA thingy so I won’t talk about that one. Instead, I’ll talk a bit about The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O’Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea by Barbara Sjoholm. Part travel memoir, part biography, I’m finding it really enjoyable to read and, even better, I’m learning new stuff!

Barbara Sjoholm is a really good writer, and reading about her travels across Europe– to do research on woman’s involvement in ocean affairs– makes me feel like I was there with her, getting rained on or having the wind slice into me. And I really like how she presents what she learned while traveling, like it’s part of her life story and not just some random facts she decided to stick in to make things more interesting. I’ve just gotten to the part about sea witches, when Ms Sjoholm is in Orkney, and it’s very interesting.

The only thing I have an issue with is her sometimes weird turn of phrase. She described a mannequin of Grace O’Malley as having a wig like a transvestite– which, okay. What? That’s on the edge of being insulting, and I’m not sure why she chose to describe a mannequin’s hair like that. Little things like that (it’s happened twice so far) throw me out of the story, but hopefully there won’t be any more.

The tea: I’ve currently become addicted to these big Arizona juice drinks, which are only $0.99 at my campus food store thing and are totally a good deal, considering how much every other drink costs in relation to its size. These cans last ALL. DAY. and they’re delicious. I’m tried the watermelon and the mango flavor earlier this week, and I think the mango is my favorite. They were out of it today, though, so I had to make do with fruit punch, which tasted a bit like less-noxious HI-C.

Not exactly tea, but, uh. It’s got vitamin C in it?

Do they go together? Ms Sjoholm drinks a lot of tea in Scotland, because it’s so rainy and horrible outside and tea is comforting. My tea is cold and refreshing, and I’m drinking it in reaction to the weather just like she was drinking her’s, so I think the book and my tea go together pretty well.

What are you drinking/reading this Thursday?