Going Bovine, by Libba Bray

Going Bovine by Libba Bray


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Fans of the Gemma Doyle series may be disappointed by this mad-cow-stoner-turned-hero story, but having spent far too much time around teen boys (15 years as a middle school teacher), I found this book to be hysterical.


This quote pretty much sums up the deadpan, madcap adventures of Cameron Smith:

“As a kid, I imagined lots of different scenarios for my life. I would be an astronaut. Maybe a cartoonist. A famous explorer or rock star. Never once did I see myself standing under the window of a house belonging to some druggie named Carbine, waiting for his yard gnome to steal his stash so I could get a cab back to a cheap motel where my friend, a neurotic, death-obsessed dwarf, was waiting for me so we could get on the road to an undefined place and a mysterious Dr. X, who would cure me of mad cow disease and stop a band of dark energy from destroying the universe.”


Comparisons will be made to Alfred Kropp and Percy Jackson, but Doyle hits the nail on the head for a more mature audience with her pitch-perfect teen dialog, her lovable loser characters, and the absurdity of the situations they encounter. Add to that, the beautiful writing such as, “…the sky began to frown. The clouds knotted together the way my grandmother scowls at my grandfather when he passes wind and blames the dog,” and you get a fantastic read for teens.


Drug references, coarse language, and a sophisticated sense of humor, make this inappropriate for middle school, though many will probably seek it out on their own.


Going Bovine is scheduled for release on September 22, 2009 by Random House. All quotes in this review were taken from an ARC and may not reflect final editorial changes.





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