Daniele Leoni Leoni itibaren Chaput Hughes, ON P2N, Canada
Heartbreaking. Interesting account of a child living in a broken household, physically and verbally abusive mother, taunting siblings and absent father. A true account as well although I doubt that some concepts and details may have been slightly exaggerated and/or fabricated due to the fact that he was a child when he was witnessing all this negative action against him and his adult mind might have filled in what his young mind couldn't quite recall. I briefly summarized the story to a friend on the bus ride home. It might have just been my amazing persuasive/storytelling skills (I'm only kidding!) but she was so fascinated by the story that she begged me to rush and buy the next book. As much as I'd have liked, I had spent my book allowance for that month, and explained to her that the earliest I could was the next month. Now, my friend, isn't really a reader. She went ahead and bought the next two books for me as a gift, then asked me to summarize it once again and retell the whole story. I felt like a grandmother telling of my children's achievements. Here I was, in the leather-coated seats of the crowded bus, detailing a story with such complex concepts that I had not personally witnessed as if they were my own. Definitely a great account, but perhaps too great. Nevertheless, 5 stars!
I had a feeling I wouldn't love this book when I saw all the comparisons to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which I hated). But I loved Nation so much I figured I'd at least give it a try. And while I didn't actually DISlike it, I didn't really connect with it in any way either. To me, the humor felt a little too heavy-handed somehow, too obvious, too...constant. I ended up feeling like there was very little story and very little depth to any of the characters and very little to keep me reading at all. Maybe I'm deficient in some way and just didn't "get it", but so be it. I'll skip the rest of the series and just stick to reading Pratchett's stand-alones.