Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

Aldus's dad is a mountain and his mom is a washing-machine. He has six brothers. One can see into the future. One is an island. Another was evil, and is dead now. The final three can fit inside of each other like Russian nesting dolls. As the story begins, he's moving into a new place where he plans on writing a story, although he has no idea what the story will be. He meets his neighbors, a bunch of punks who think he's extremely strange. Because he is. He's very interested in one of the girls that lives there, and one night when he's out with her, he finds out she has wings which her boyfriend saws off for her so she can seem normal. All of this is well and good, and interesting. As you can probably tell from this overview, this is a story about not fitting in, but trying very hard to do so. As a metaphor, the whole thing is very interesting. This is magical realism, and I like it. What this book lacks is a compelling plot. There IS a plot, it's just not compelling. The dead brother has apparently come back, and is lurking around being creepy. And Alfie (the main character's name is different every time, but always begins with an A) meets an anarchist sort of dude who wants to create a wireless network that gives all of Toronto free wireless internet. This also functions as part of the metaphor. . . Abraham wants to be connected with all the "normal" people out there. . .but it just ain't interesting. Here we have an unusual, if not especially likeable, character, and he has a fascinating family, and struggles with issues that we all struggle with. But, every time he starts talking about the fucking internet, I get REALLY bored. And, every time Davie (the evil brother) does something creepy, I just wonder why ol' Dallas (his name also changes) is even in the book. At the end, I still don't know. Nor do I understand why I was supposed to give a fuck about wireless internet. Or the girl with the wings. Or Doyle. I might have harsher feelings about this book because it took months to finish; Joy and I read it out loud before bed whenever the mood struck us. So, this 300-pager seemed to drag on forever. But, it might be a sign about the compellingness of the plot that we weren't tempted to read it frequently at all. After finishing it, Joy shrugged, and I said, "Well, that's that." We're very ready to move on to something else. I'm still undecided about Cory Doctorow: I really liked Little Brother, and I still want to read some more of his stuff. But this book, which I was really excited about beforehand, really seemed to fall on its ass.

Gritty magical realism; part horror, part sideshow. A haunting book that had me thinking about the odd characters for days. Interesting themes of family and belonging, fitting in, and access to resources of different types.

I'm disappointed in this book. It was way too scatterbrained, and lacked any sort of conclusion to any of the threads.

Very fun read. Imaginative and delightful overall. I only wish I understood the purpose of changing everyone's name every third sentance.