Ugh. This one was not a particularly enjoyable book. It seemed to plod along uselessly without much happening. It also bordered on "magical realism," which is a genre that I think the world would be much better off without.
While doing some research on this book, I found a tie that I should have spotted myself, but missed:
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
as
Hamlet
. I don't think it improves the story much. I think it was a loooong, slow "retelling" of Hamlet, and even that seems like a tenuous link made by people who are looking for something in the book. Though there are several parallels, 90% of the book has nothing to do with
Hamlet at all. The ending is wrong, and not in a happy way; the plot is disconnected; and the writing is not good. This was such a big "selling point" of the book that I thought I should address that.
On top of all of that, Wroblewski leaves many plot points out. The "ghost" is never explained, Forte the dog is never explained or incorporated, Edgar gets halfway to Canada and inexplicably turns back, the old lady at the drug store is random and not incorporated, the list goes on and on. And the ending is just bad. Bad bad bad, no matter which was you slice it. An amazon.com reviewer said it best: "Of all the ways this story could have ended, the worst of all possible worlds was chosen. The good guys lose, the bad guys lose, the marginal characters lose, the dogs lose, and ultimately the reader is the biggest loser of them all. The reader is left to resent the time spent getting to the conclusion. A refund of the cost of the book would not repay time wasted reading it." I could not have said it better myself.
1/5 stars
