I would like, if I may be so bold, to try a revolutionary new rating system for this particular book. Since the novel I'm reviewing is divided into three distinct "Parts," I would like to rate each of these individual parts separately (!!!!!!!).



This isn't just because I'm bored of giving a book only one rating (though, truth be told, I am sort of bored of doing that) but because I had very different reactions to each of the three sections.



So here goes:



PART 1 -- RATING: 4 Stars



It's hard not to

I would like, if I may be so bold, to try a revolutionary new rating system for this particular book. Since the novel I'm reviewing is divided into three distinct "Parts," I would like to rate each of these individual parts separately (!!!!!!!).



This isn't just because I'm bored of giving a book only one rating (though, truth be told, I am sort of bored of doing that) but because I had very different reactions to each of the three sections.



So here goes:



PART 1 -- RATING: 4 Stars



It's hard not to get directly on board with the beginning of this book. It starts with a first personal plural voice from some kind of God Consciousness/Choral Voice Of The Multiverse. And this voice is all knowing. It is articulate, caring, and slyly funny. Also this voice is speaking to our narrator, Junior Thibodeaux, when he is fetus, just chillin in his mom. And it is speaking to him about the end of the world, which is coming in thirty-six years via one big-ass comet.



For a good long time after these initial revelations, delivered with a serious acrobatic use of POV I might add, I was pretty drunk on the premise of this book and thus willing to follow it through the significantly less mind-expanding worlds of our narrator's coming of age story. It helped, however, that Currie Jr. was at his best with the young Thibodeaux. A love-at-first-sight moment set against the Challenger disaster was masterfully staged. And the early family life of Junior came across believably, if a little heavily weighted toward substance abuse and some familiar "dysfunctions."



On the whole, though, the opening section dazzled with the revelation of its main conceit, it found a solid pace, and it presented the Thibodeauxs in a way that felt just realist enough to keep me emotionally involved in the prospect of comet-based catastrophe to come.



Then...



PART 2 -- RATING: 2 Stars



The dreaded dip.



It's rare to find a novel that doesn't sag a bit around the mid-section. They're all a bit like gym teachers in that way. But, even though I stayed interested in Junior's existential growth in the face of his knowledge in Part 2, I also could have used some less repetitive and slightly far-fetched examples of his "what's-the-effing-point" phase. And the major developments in his life (He's now an expert on the comet! He has the ability to cure cancer!) felt like they were all supposed to be explained simply by the fact that he was in the Gifted and Talented program in Part 1 (oh, and also the God/multiverse voice provides a few cheat codes every now and again). By the end of this section, I found myself hoping the comet might land sooner than expected.



But then...



PART 3 -- RATING: 5 Stars



Greatness. Pure greatness. Like sugar to the veins.



I'm going to resist the powerful urge to spoil and spoil again, but I won't. I won't spoil! I'll just say that Currie Jr. found a way to end his book that not only gave it twice as much depth, but that also completely confounded and satisfied me at the same time. The God/Other Thing voice plays a big part in this. And all of the big philosophical ideas surrounding our eminent demise finally came to feel visceral and resonant. Of course, it was easy to read the book all the way as just an exaggerated version of the holy-shit-I'm-going-to-die-someday-no-matter-what-so-why-does-anything-matter-at-all condition that affects everyone at some point (or constantly...). But oddly enough, it wasn't until the right combination of human drama and the possible end of everything arrived that I felt this keenly. Yet, when I did, it was a glorious surrender to the fictional moment.



I really imagined what it might be like to stare down the void, and it was comforting in a way that the best fiction should aspire to. It wasn't falsely comforting like the way I used to feel in Sunday School. And it wasn't indulgent despairing like the way I used to feel in high school. It was just a cogent moment of humbling realization, and even when the sentiments of the title come swooping in at just the right time, I couldn't resist them. In fact, I was ready to believe them.





