Review: Insightful, honest, funny and depressing at the same time
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 20, 2013
This is definitely a talented author and I want to offer encouragement, so that is why I give it five stars, even though I honestly can't say that I "loved" it.  This novel was unique and extremely thought-provoking, but not something to read for a lift, that's for sure.  It had quite a few laugh out loud moments and that always wins me over, but just as many dangerously dark moments.I have a solid center in spirituality that kept the message of emptiness that plagued the main character from drawing me in to his void-borne perception, but I wouldn't want some of the people that I love who aren't so grounded to read this.  In fact, that is what bothered me about it the most - it reminds me of a couple of those people.  One is doing well now, but it took me a year of working with him through my online ministry to get him past a suicidal senior year of high school and into college where he could thrive.  Joe is exactly like he was. Highly intelligent, caustically dismissive of spirituality as self-deception, obsessed with fame and simultaneously despairing of ever "being somebody."  This is how boys from Columbine are made.So, at the same time, that is what makes this work so genuine and so important.  It's a truth that needs to be told.I kept hoping that Joe would "wake up" spiritually, but he's a typical product of our secular society.  There is very little influence in his world that could draw him out of his meaningless life.  The truth that sets us free is a truth that has to be sought out - it doesn't just drop into our laps here in America.  Joe blames forces outside himself for swamping him with trash, but the truth is, the internet "bubble" we live in is self-designed.  If he gets mobbed with porn and celebrity gossip, it's because those are the site he visits.  My computer offers me links to sites about enlightenment and the path to joy because that is what I seek out, not droves of trash that lead to darkness.Still, I find this character very intriguing, and I'm still pulling for him.  I hope he opens his eyes in the second book.