Going Bovine

Going Bovine is written from the viewpoint of Cameron Smith, a decidedly average high school student. His life is pretty boring at the start of the book: he's a social misfit with an incredibly popular twin sister, his parents are both teachers who can't understand why he's underachieving, and he has no friends aside from a few stoners and the clerk of the record shop he frequents. His life changes when he starts having strange visions and begins having difficulty controlling his body. Cameron learns that he has Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of mad cow disease, for which there is no cure. While in the hospital, Cameron is visited by an angel with pink hair and combat boots named Dulcie. Dulcie tells him that his disease has been caused by a wizard and that the same forces destroying his brain will also destroy the world. Dulcie tells him that if he can find Dr. X, he can be cured and save the world in the process. On his quest, Cameron encounters all sorts of odd people: Gonzo, a Mexican-American dwarf from his high school, a garden gnome who's really a Norse god, a happiness cult, a New Orleans jazz musician, physicists, an Inuit rock band, and others who either help or hinder his mission. His journey takes him from his Texas hometown to New Orleans and Florida. Bray gives Cameron a very believable voice and has created a pop culture manifesto with the crazy world he inhabits. Going Bovine is packed full of fun weirdness, but is also a soul searching journey as Cameron discovers that there is more to living than simply being alive. One of the best books I've read in quite a while, I would recommend Going Bovine to anyone, despite its being billed as a young adult novel.

Although definitely a book for young adults (18+), this novel is clever and complex, full of twists, turns and literary references. Libba Bray infuses the book with sarcastic wit that had me laughing out loud and cheering for the slacker protagonist. When I read literature for young adults, I often think about who I would give the book to. In this case, there is a liberal dose of sex, language and drug use, so I would definitely opt for someone over the age of 16 who is mature enough to handle the subject matter (or perhaps a more immature adult!). But this book would be hard to give away; definitely one to keep and re-read.

I'll admit it, I was a little nervous to read this book. I wasn't quite sure how Libba's jump from the Gemma Doyle books (Victorian, girls, supernatural...) would be to a book like Going Bovine. In the end, I had nothing to worry about, because Libba wrote something just as magical and captivating but entirely different. When the book starts, we see how Cameron is living his life (or not living). Then, he is diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob's (Mad Cow disease). His body slowly starts to breakdown, having twitches, seizures, hallucinations. His life will soon be over before it ever really began. Then angel Dulcie pops in, and the story gets going. Told he needs to follow the random clues, he and his hypochondriac dwarf friend Gonzo are on a mission to find Dr. X, Gonzo's purpose, and the cure for Cam's illness. Going Bovine is wild, crazy, fun, comedic, scary, sad, and everything in between. The story is amazing, the characters are beautifully written, and at the end, you'll have a whole new appreciation for life. Highlights: Way to go, Libba Bray, for stepping out into something new. This novel really hits home that you need to get out there and live while you can, because you might not have much time. Lowlights: Honestly, nothing. Going Bovine is a must-read.

GOING BOVINE, Libba Bray's surprising and unconventional new novel, is one of those books that seems impossible to explain. Doing so, however, is my job, so here it goes. Cameron Smith is the kind of kid you probably never noticed during high school (unless you, like him, were lighting up joints in the school bathroom). He is scraping by in his classes, not interested in college, and suffers from constant and disappointing comparisons to his perky, preppy twin sister Jenna. Basically, Cameron is on a slow but uncontrollable skid to nowhere. That is, until his recent bouts of uncontrolled behavior and terrifying visions are revealed to be caused not by drug use (as his parents suspect) but by Creutzfeldt-Jakob's, better known as mad cow disease. Basically, the tissue in his brain is breaking down, turning into a spongy mess (and apparently also letting in armor-clad wizards and threatening pillars of flame). Pretty soon, Cameron is finding himself poked and prodded, stuffed into hospital beds and down MRI tubes, with a terminal diagnosis and the horrible realization that he might be about to die without ever having lived. Guided only by cryptic clues from an elusive (and strangely attractive) punk rock angel named Dulcie and accompanied by a hypochondriac dwarf named Gonzo, Cameron sets off on a road trip/wild goose chase to find the enigmatic Dr. X, a physicist who disappeared as if into thin air years ago. According to Dulcie, Dr. X holds both the potential to destroy the entire world and the ability to cure Cameron's disease. Joined along the way by a (nearly) indestructible talking yard gnome who might be the incarnation of the Norse god Balder, aided by drunken frat boys and a Portuguese warbler and a visionary jazz man, Cameron's trip culminates in what might be the world's wackiest spring break. By turns hilarious and tragic, GOING BOVINE above all will keep readers guessing, as they must unravel what is real, what is a dream, and whether any of that really matters. Up until now, Libba Bray has been best known as the author of the Victorian supernatural romance trilogy started with A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY. She is certainly in no danger of being typecast with her follow-up to those books, however; here she's channeling Douglas Adams and Kurt Vonnegut rather than Charlotte Brontë. GOING BOVINE is simultaneously perplexing and absorbing, the kind of novel that will have readers laughing in delight, not only at Balder's one-liners but also at the kinds of absurd, amazing, seemingly random connections that tie everything together. Physics, philosophy and fantasy collide on Cameron's journey, a road trip whose destination is both inevitable and somehow unexpected. The ending is sobering and entirely satisfactory, and challenges not only assumptions about narrative structure and voice but also larger questions about life, death and everything in between. GOING BOVINE is both hopeful and hilarious, the kind of novel in which hope, hilarity a

Cameron Smith is the sort of teenager who in a few years would have turned out alright. Fantastic even. Then he gets diagnosed with the human form of Mad Cow's disease. In Libba Bray's hands we get a tragic story on the cusp of "what could have been". Going Bovine is an amazing mix of pathos and humor as Cameron undertakes a marvelous journey into madness, and ironically, still contains hope. Believe me, the road trip with Gonzo and the garden gnome are hilarious and well worth the read alone. The author makes sardonic connections to current events and possesses the writing chops to tap into the magic of The Catcher in the Rye and Don Quixote in her supposedly young adult novel. However, what really stayed with me are the small snippets of lucidity Cameron has in this 400+ book. He and his family become real and while reading you can't help but wish that the inevitable won't come. In the first chapter Cameron says "I've been dying my whole life" but the point of the book is because we're all dying we need to live-any way we can-even if it takes a talking gnome to make that happen. Bray didn't disappoint with Going Bovine, and hope that some how she can visit Cameron or his family in another novel because It's the sort of book you don't want to end.