Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Going Bovine

by Libba Bray

From the author of the Gemma Doyle trilogy and The Diviners series, this groundbreaking New York Times bestseller and winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for literary excellence is "smart, funny, and layered," raves Entertainment Weekly.

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...Read more

Reviewed by mary on

1 of 5 stars

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Going Bovine can be summed up in one word: bizarre. It’s random and weird and crazy, but in a way that you can tell is fully intentional. It feels like Libba Bray knew what she was doing with each word, making sure they created the exact story she wanted to tell, even if it was super strange.

SPOILERS TO FOLLOW....

At nearly five hundred pages the novel is long and baggy; too much is focused on Cameron’s road trip fever dream. The family isn’t well established enough in the novel proper for us to mourn Cameron’s death or to experience their reactions. Bray scorns censorship, the self-esteem movement, and enforced positivity and happiness. Bray could have written a good dystopian work on identity and reality instead of a novel about an untimely teen death and the desperation to live if only in dreamland.

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  • Started reading
  • 1 April, 2014: Finished reading
  • 1 April, 2014: Reviewed