Reviews and Comments

The book kicked off like a somewhat run-of-the-mill literary novel about a young man dealing with a hard life. His mom has a drinking problem, his brother is autistic, and he's trying to escape through college. But when it seems like this bit of narrative won't be able to carry the story, it piggybacks onto a mystery/thriller. It's an interesting combination of those two elements, and at the very moment it started to drag & I thought I'd figured everything out, it took another turn. It was an enjoyable read, though I would warn anyone interested it does involve murder, sexual assault, and child abuse among its subject matter. The story has a bit of a true crime vibe, albeit fiction, that worked quite well for me; if you're a fan of that genre, you may enjoy this.

Most of this book is basic grammar that any editor should know, but as an editor, I can tell you that it always benefits me to compound the common sense of my profession unto my gray matter as often as I can. There's also a great deal of good humor and nuances of British grammar in this book, which is an area that I am not so well-versed in. I love a book on grammar that so effectively blends things we should remember from our early schooling—that perhaps we don't—with facts and jokes that engage an educated audience. I really loved the stuff focusing on the UK, but I appreciate those aspects that sought to convey a general knowledge of how English works and where it came from.

There's a solid mystery underlying this novel, and as the title betrays, it also indulges in a meta-narrative that is delivered by the narrator of the story. The mystery/thriller that is the core of this book would work really well on its own with plenty of twists, turns, revelations, and clues sprinkled in so that the savvy can start to put together the picture, and yet it adds in more with interesting narrative choices, such as telling you near the beginning what chapters people die in and acknowledging the novel as an already completed, written work. There was a good deal more going on in this story than I had expected at the start, and by the end, I was really enjoying it.

I think this is the first time I've read this play since high school. It's even more wonderful than I had remembered. There are so many fantastic lines and quotable quotations! There was barely a moment I wasn't laughing the whole way through, and I think the humor works even better for me now that I'm over 20 years older than the last time I read it. I suspect I will be accusing friends of vulgarly talking like a dentist over dinner in the near future.