Plot/Storyline: 4 1/2 Stars
This novel tells the story of a man on a trip to New York to promote his soon to be published first novel. He takes a small detour to visit an old Junior High friend. The entire story is about this trip and the people he meets on the way.
The book is told entirely from Simon's viewpoint. Simon is not a very likeable guy; as a matter of fact, he is a self-centered, pompous jerk. But for some reason, it's pretty fun to be inside his head, mainly because he is an inadvertant, oblivious jerk.
The storyline does go off on tangents now and then, but they are fairly short ones. In these, you will learn Simon's views on smoking, cleanliness and going to the bathroom, just to name a few. There were times that I laughed out loud.
Simon has an opinion of each and every person that he runs across, even tangentially. Even when he kind of likes someone, he finds reasons to dislike them. His opinions are mercurial depending on events in a particular moment.
The ending was not well told. I would have rather had more explanation. Although, you can extropolate what happened, I like my ends tied up a little more neatly. It was almost more like you would end a short story rather than a long novel.
Character Development: 5 Stars
Simon's character was the only well developed personality in the book. That's as it should be as it was told solely from his viewpoint. The author never `cheated' so that Simon or the reader knew more than what Simon should have. The author did a terrific job of painting Simon. He was predictable only in that the reader gets to know him so well.
Writing Style: 4 1/2 Stars
This author has an interesting voice in that you feel like you are listening to Simon's every thought. Even though he's mostly just a regular guy, his thoughts run rampant in all directions, never leaving the reader bored.
There was a particular quirk that was annoying: the repeated usage of "what" surrounded by commas. Sentences like the following were scattered throughout:
I enjoyed this book, what, like you've never enjoyed a book?
I don't know if the issue was the punctuation or just the interjection, but it was distracting.
Editing/Formatting: 4 1/2 Stars
The editing could have been better as there were a few instances of missing punctuation and a missing article, like `the' or `an'. However, they were not so numerous as to spoil the reading experience.
The Kindle formatting also suffered a bit with no line or page breaks between chapters. You might see a number at the end of a sentence, with the next line being the beginning of the next chapter.
Overall: A very good novel that was humorous throughout.
Rating: R for language. This book is filled with bad language. I seriously doubt there are many pages without at least one cuss word.
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