Review: Intellectual, abstract, and very creative, but rather inconclusive.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 24, 2012
This book is very unique compared to others, and for some that may be a good thing, but one thing that makes this novel unique is how confusing it can be.It's split into three parts, and it starts off with a man named Max who has just agreed to be the subject of a very bizarre surgery, but you don't get very far into that when the book jumps to your next character; John. Now there are many personalities of John. Some of others are referred to as @teenjohnny, Rich Jon, John Classic, etc. The author wastes no time in jumping back and forth between them, Max, and other characters such as Morrie.Now when I mean jump, you can literally have a one page chapter about one event that seems like a piece of the puzzle, but you're unsure where to place it. With as many of those as you get, you might start to lose interest, and as early in the book as this appears, many readers may end up putting the book down right there. Of course, this also implies everything will be patched up in the next two parts of the books, so let's move on.Further in, you start to get the interesting characters and you'll get some answers, but with every answer you get, there are two more questions from you. You'll meet Morrie the stenographer and learn about how he ties into the uprising for Max, and some more of John's personalities. With new personalities come bizarre confusing scenes like being able to see from the back of your head, or maybe smashing a bunch of talking heads and stuffing them in your closet. That all adds to the confusion though as you have a hard time telling what's really happening because even normal looking scenes take place during these odd sequences. Plus with all of the plot jumping, it's not so easy to tell the chronological order of events. When you do get answers though, they are brief. For instance, the whole "Max's Maxies" movement is explained in one small chapter.Now bizarre and confusing is understandable and welcome, especially when it's clear the author intended for the story to be that way, because it usually makes the story more interesting, but does it in this case? There are a few interesting characters, and those ones are generally the ones that have longer, or at least more thoroughly explained sequences. It's easy to recall No-Pardon Johnny with his full plans for assassination, and even @teenjohnny who has relatively small chapters, but a memorably high IQ. When you compare that to the fact that I have to go back into the book to figure out which John is Rich Jon, that shows you how memorable some of the other characters are.In part three, things start to sum up. The sequences move from bizarre to concluding, but oh wait- back to bizarre. When you get a few answers, and finally feel like you're about to understand everything, you sort of roll back.So overall it's a very good plot and theme, but when a book is this confusing you want to be interested, and I was only hooked to certain parts of this story, and when you combine that with the ending, you get the feeling that you never really got a conclusion to begin with.