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Michael considered fate at 14:12   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

Okay boys and girls. It's book review time. I don't tend to bother with such things, normally, but this one is gonna be good so it's worth the read.

Envy The Rain by Jaime Boud.

This is a book about my generation. Well. Sort of. It's a book that takes place on two continents, in many countries, and takes the reader down more walks of life than a box of chocolates. This is a book about internet dating, about meeting people in the grocery store, about bicycling through amsterdam with a stranger, and about the struggle to believe in the golden dream. This is a book about one man's journey through life and it's about as colourful as that wonderous children's movie Labyrinth except our hero is a boy named Drew. I say boy because the writing is as that of a child - describing the world as it exactly looks and feels to him at the time. This is not cookie-cutter prose where tired old metaphors are poured on like so much fake maple syrup. This is the real deal. Each character is described with minute and incredible detail. Not that there is too much detail. Luckily, you will not find pages upon pages describing a single scene or a whole chapter devoted to the feelings you get after you kiss a girl. These are details at their finest - short, sweet, fleeting.. like life's little moments that make it all worthwhile.

The characters in this book are real - oh so real - but the work of fairytales nonetheless. The girls that float in and out of Drew's life are curious enigmas, the chief one being akin to David Bowie's character in the Labyrinth - evil? seductive. Challenging?.. something.

Most impressive of all? It's self-published. This is my first experience with a book produced by CafePress and I'm very impressed indeed. The cover is a nice glossy finish. The pages are of a nice stock. It's well cut. It's an amazing testament to this crazy and technologically-evolving time we live in.

Is it perfect? Of course not. There are typos. But it is impressive for a self-published book nonetheless. I've seen worse editing from big publishing houses. Truly.

The final verdict? I went to bed reading this book on Friday night and got through about 180 pages. The next morning, I finished the rest of the 298 pages before I got out of bed the next morning. It was that good. Coming from a cheap bastard, let me say that it was well worth the $20.