Reviewed by thepunktheory on
First of all, I read this book in German and I have the distinct feeling that it's much better in English (as it is so often the case). Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this novel. David Duchovny (who as it turns out was about to get his Doctor in Literature in Yale before he started acting) wrote a witty and funny first book that I honestly hadn't seen coming. The story is weird but yet adorable. The fact that it's told by Elsie herself is refreshing. Holy Cow delivers an important message: animals have feelings to, you should think about what you eat. However, how the message was presented was a bit of a letdown. As I've said before, the book might be funnier in English (translations often ruin some of the fun) but many of the jokes were very flat and much too silly for my taste. The story would still have been funny if the tone had been a bit more serious! Especially the constant pop-culture references that felt more than forced began to be annoying after some time. In general, I thought that Duchovny had some nice ideas but the whole thing was a bit shallow. The book itself isn't too long and several times I had wished for something a bit deeper.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 14 September, 2018: Finished reading
- 14 September, 2018: Reviewed