X NO X
Noooooo ... I can't do it
Not going to finish this It became an act of perseverance. Then not even skimming helped. Not even jumping to the end and reading backwards (to see if it gets any better).
Just awful. Blerk. Yukky.
And the surprising thing is that it was recommended by a friend who also recommended Year of Wonders and Madonnas of Leningrad ... both awesomely spectacular wonderful favourite reads.
Precocious doesn't come close to an apt description for the voice of the main character ... I'll go for obnoxious instead. His repetitive behaviours which are meant to be both cute and indicative of deep trauma are simply ... repetitive ... they are "heavy boots" in fact ... or even "What the?"... or "Jose" ... let's have a bit of artificial swearing because it is pretentiously cute!!!
