Vacation

by Jeremy C. Shipp (Goodreads author!)

published	2007 by Raw Dog Screaming Press
binding	Paperback
isbn	1933293411 (isbn13: 9781933293417)
url	http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi...
pages	164
literary awards	Bram Stoker Award Preliminary Ballot, P&E Readers' Poll--ranked #3 horror novel of 2007
description	"Shipp's clear, insistant voice pulls you down into the rabbit hole and doesn't let go." --Jack Ketchum "[Vacation] is an intriguin...more [close] "Shipp's clear, insistant voice pulls you down into the rabbit hole and doesn't let go." --Jack Ketchum "[Vacation] is an intriguing, challenging, literate, provocative novel I'm not sure I understand and suspect I'm not meant to… I recommend it to those who find reality boring; it may make them see it in new ways." —Piers Anthony The world has, since the inception - intentional or otherwise - of humankind, always been a dubious plane of existence. You'd be hard-pressed to find an author, poet, artist, musician, politician, holy man, or everyman who has never spoken out concerning the human condition, from the tiniest fib to the most horrific act of genocide. Newspaper columnists, Sunday preachers, eastern philosophers all dissect the meaning of life in their various fashions - but Jeremy Shipp's Vacation, a first-person tour de force that takes place in an alternate universe and / or future-in-the-making, actually takes the human condition and turns it inside out. On the surface, Vacation is about a disgruntled English teacher named Bernard Johnson who goes on Vacation (yes, proper capitalization) with an ex-student, once-male, now-female friend and discovers the world is not what he initially thought it to be. Okay. Simple enough premise - you see it all the time in various forms of literature (well, maybe without the sex change). Peel away that superficial layer, though, and you soon find yourself entangled in a labyrinth of spiritual testing and social commentary unflinchingly portrayed by Shipp's characters. In this world, society exists in two major flavors: the Tics and the Meeks, the former being the well-to-dos of the industrialized nations, the latter being the poor, the exiled. Using this metaphor, it quickly becomes obvious the Tics are our own pop culture, the pill-popping, credit-card-wielding, overfed, and over-stimulated masses who have been shielded from the terrible truths of the world in a sort of global propaganda scheme to bolster big business. The Meeks are, well, everyone else - a grassroots conglomerate of militants who have cleansed their bodies and minds of all social poisons. Somewhere in between is the Garden, an external haven lead by Noh, who seeks to seed truth back into the world, one mind at a time. Bernard's adventure plays out in the classic escapist fashion - on crack. Indeed, much of his transformation has to do with the altering of his mind, the skewering of his perspective, so that he may glimpse the dream he's been living from the outside. He goes on Vacation, falls in love, becomes a tool for the Meeks, and ultimately helps to realize Noh's vision of social revolution - but don't expect any of this to be A-B-C, for the strength of Shipp's narrative lies in his ability to toss the ball to his characters and trust that their decisions, their reactions will guide the story true. The underlying meaning is present throughout, but it is quite obvious from the start that you, the reader, are just as responsible as Bernard in coming to your own conclusions. Shipp's style in Vacation demands an agile approach, as various scenes shift seamlessly between dreams and reality - often without warning. I'm reminded of S.P. Somtow's Riverrun Trilogy: one quarter real, three quarters surreal. Considering the concept, I can't imagine it any other way. Vacation is a potent social theory, a spiritual hopscotch from start to finish. With interesting scenarios and thought-provoking dialog, it is a compelling reason for fans of psychological fantasy to look up Jeremy Shipp. --Jesse Gordon
date added	06-02-07 edit book

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Ask Jeremy any weird question	3	02/07/2008 02:22PM
Congrat's Jeremy	2	01/24/2008 03:39PM
Vacation has made the Bram Stoker Award Preliminary Ballot	3	01/24/2008 03:40PM

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Julia rated it:

03/11/08

Read in February, 2008

recommended to Julia by: Jeremy Shipp

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

(This is an even longer and more rambly version of the review I did for GUD Magazine (www.gudmagazine.com).)

I had to take a step back after reading Vacation to realize it really is as imaginative as it's advertised as being, because it's not so much the usual suspects, like the crazy plot antics or the political interpolations, that impressed me, but the parts that were presented more matter-of-factly, the characters and the interactions. The novel's main character, Bernard Johnson, suspends...more (This is an even longer and more rambly version of the review I did for GUD Magazine (www.gudmagazine.com).)

I had to take a step back after reading Vacation to realize it really is as imaginative as it's advertised as being, because it's not so much the usual suspects, like the crazy plot antics or the political interpolations, that impressed me, but the parts that were presented more matter-of-factly, the characters and the interactions. The novel's main character, Bernard Johnson, suspends himself from his prestigious job and prestigious relationships to take his medicated, ennui-filled self off on the Vacation, a free year-long trip provided to each citizen by the oh-so-benevolent U.S. government. But he's sidetracked into the Garden, a more-or-less-terrorist more-or-less stronghold where he's detoxed and deconstructed, then shown the world as it is outside the bubble he's been limited to thus far. It's a twist, though not a very radical one, on the classic hero's journey—but in each part of the journey, the goal Bernard thinks he has is just a slight angle off from what turns out to be the real end. And fitting in with the hero-journey theme, Shipp throws in a few more classic character-types, including guides, foils, virgins, convenient geniuses, and even a bona fide Jester, but they're all nicely fleshed-out, so you have to work to recognize them as types. The characters in Vacation aren't exactly what you'd call believable, but they are true, and that's more important.

Vacation is a novel with a lot of interesting ideas in it and a lot of problems. In fact, it has been referred to as a Novel of Ideas (though the narrator does his best to obscure that with pontificating; it's an interesting aspect of the style). Many of the ideas weren't as new to me as they may have been to some, but then, I read a lot of anti-corporate-globalization, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist writing, including some that's dropped off the far edge of paranoia. (Not that I'm saying Vacation is necessarily any of those things, per se, but it draws on the relevant paradigms to build the particular possible future of its setting.) A lot of other reviewers seem to think this novel really wild and crazy, and not that I don't think it's an original take, but if you've never thought about this stuff before...well, read Vacation and get thinking, because you should be! It's a good meditation on the possible outcomes of Progress, and it usually manages not to be preachy. (And as the characters point out, certain ideas are best encountered in fiction first, before they bite you on the ass in reality.)

Besides its political ideas, Vacation also has plenty of interesting and thought-provoking musings on the intertwining and conflict of personal goals with political or artistic ones, the vagaries of human nature, the question of deserving what we get, and the importance of eating your vegetables—mixed in with a lot of hot air from Bernard, the former-English-teacher narrator. (In case you miss anything, the important ideas are repeated, but in a way that is usually more interestingly refrain-like—a Chorus, perhaps?—than annoying. Usually.) His characterizations of the world around him, in pithy analogies and humorous tangents, can be quite clever when they work—and when they don't, their particular brand of annoyingness does fit the character. Shipp is one of those writers who bases his craft on being a good social analyst; that's mostly a good thing, but there are almost more observations about the contradictions of—and the nifty things about—our society and humanity in general packed into the space of this short novel than it can hold.

In fact, Shipp could have written a much longer book with the same basic content; this book is good and spare, mostly without feeling too abbreviated. In general, it's nice to have a bit of a challenge, to have to fill in some of the emotional details for oneself, though there are a few points of character development (and character-relationship development) on which it might have been nice to have a bit more to go on; at times I felt more like I was giving the author the benefit of the doubt than accepting a challenge. In any case, the novel is never boring, even the parts that are just the narrator whining—but interestingly, I didn't find the bits that would usually be called action sequences particularly more exciting than the rest; the book is very evenly paced.

As for the problems.... Well, most of the things I found problematic about the novel came at me full-force with the introduction; I half-suspect the author of trying to warn off the faint of heart. So if you can get through that, you know what you're in for, and at least things don't get much worse. The introduction frames the whole novel as a personal letter from the narrator to his parents and advertises that we're in for an abrasive read. The intro is clumsily written at various levels, and though I'd like to think that's on purpose because it's supposed to be a personal letter, I frankly suspect the author was just trying too hard to get a certain feel and not paying much attention to the details. The voice is at its most deliberately obnoxious at the beginning—which does accurately introduce the narrator's attitude (and means our feelings towards him can only improve from there), but unfortunately, it emphasizes the disconnect between the voice of the narrator-at-the-time-of-the-story's-events and the narrator-at-the-time-of-the-telling, when he is a different person than he was at the beginning of the events he narrated. (Of course, it makes sense for one to get into the mood of the time one is describing and tell it like one felt it at the time, but on the other hand, the introduction is a direct address from the (later) now, so its over-the-top whininess doesn't quite fit.)

This letter-framing actually doesn't make that much sense in the context of the novel as a whole—unless we assume it's one of those letters that never gets sent (but then why use the conceit at all?)—given that it's full of Secrets the narrator wouldn't want to tell even his parents, but on the other hand, it couldn't be done away with without changing the whole feel of the novel. (The whole thing has the sort of intermittent petulance that someone who has grown up as much as the narrator has at the time he's writing can exhibit only towards their parents.) There are a number of such small implausibilities, as well as a couple of discontinuities and general factual unlikelihoods, scattered throughout the book, along with more low-level editing problems, but it's not bad for a first novel.

I'd be more impressed with this particular obnoxious (patronizing, melodramatic, whiney) narrator if he weren't so similar in voice to the narrator of "Baby Edward", in GUD Magazine's Issue 2. If I hadn't read that, I might think a lot of the clumsiness and roughness was carefully constructed and that this was a painstaking creation, but knowing what I do, I'm not as impressed. (I also would have been more inclined to think this was a carefully-constructed voice rather than just the author's own roughness if there hadn't been a random clumsily-inserted passage near the end where we discover the narrator is a writer (Just like Shipp, he writes really weird stuff people frequently don't get! Imagine!). I'm not sure what Shipp was going for putting that in there, but for me, it had the effect of making me distrust his creativity.) But in balance, the narrator's obnoxiousness is well-integrated into the story and makes sense as part of the whole, wherever it came from.

As the book goes on, the character changes and one gets more used to his abrasiveness anyway, so it ceases to interfere as much. One can fall into the rhythm and special logic of the story and be captivated by its charms—and I, at least, certainly was....less

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GUD rated it:

03/11/08

bookshelves: gud_issue2_authors, reviewed_by_gud, reviews_by_julia, works_by_gud_authors

Read in February, 2008

I had to take a step back after reading Vacation to realize it really is as imaginative as it's advertised as being, because it's not so much the usual suspects, like the crazy plot antics or the political interpolations, that impressed me, but the parts that were presented more matter-of-factly, the characters and the interactions. The novel's main character, Bernard Johnson, suspends himself from his prestigious job and prestigious relationships to take his medicated, ennui-filled self off on ...more I had to take a step back after reading Vacation to realize it really is as imaginative as it's advertised as being, because it's not so much the usual suspects, like the crazy plot antics or the political interpolations, that impressed me, but the parts that were presented more matter-of-factly, the characters and the interactions. The novel's main character, Bernard Johnson, suspends himself from his prestigious job and prestigious relationships to take his medicated, ennui-filled self off on the Vacation, a free year-long trip provided to each citizen by the oh-so-benevolent U.S. government. But he's sidetracked into the Garden, a more-or-less-terrorist more-or-less stronghold where he's detoxed and deconstructed, then shown the world as it is outside the bubble he's been limited to thus far. It's a twist, though not a very radical one, on the classic hero's journey—but in each part of the journey, the goal Bernard thinks he has is just a slight angle off from what turns out to be the real end. And fitting in with the hero-journey theme, Shipp throws in a few more classic character-types, including guides, foils, virgins, geniuses, and even a bona fide Jester, but they're all nicely fleshed-out, so you have to work to recognize them as types. The characters in Vacation aren't exactly what you'd call believable, but they are true, and that's more important.

Vacation is a novel with a lot of interesting ideas in it and a lot of problems. (In fact, Vacation has been referred to as a Novel of Ideas.) Many of those ideas weren't as new to me as they may have been to some, but then, I read a lot of anti-corporate-globalization, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist writing, including some that's dropped off the far edge of paranoia. (Not that I’m saying Vacation is necessarily any of those things, per se, but it draws on the relevant paradigms to build the particular possible future of its setting.) A lot of other reviewers seem to think this novel really wild and crazy, and not that I don't think it's an original take, but if you've never thought about this stuff before...well, read Vacation and get thinking, because you should be! It's a good meditation on the possible outcomes of Progress, and it usually manages not to be preachy. And as the characters point out, certain ideas are best encountered in fiction first, before they bite you on the ass in reality.

Besides its political ideas, Vacation also has plenty of interesting and thought-provoking musings on the intertwining and conflict of personal goals with political or artistic ones, the vagaries of human nature, the question of deserving what we get, and the importance of eating your vegetables—mixed in with a lot of hot air from Bernard, the former-English-teacher narrator. (In case you miss anything, the important ideas are repeated, in a way that is usually more interestingly refrain-like—a Chorus, perhaps?—than annoying. Usually.) His characterizations of the world around him, in pithy analogies and humorous tangents, can be quite clever when they work—and when they don't, their particular brand of annoyingness does fit the character. Shipp is one of those writers who bases his craft on being a good social analyst; that's mostly a good thing, but there are almost more observations about the contradictions of—and the nifty things about—our society and humanity in general packed into the space of this short novel than it can hold.

In fact, Shipp could have written a much longer book with the same basic content; this book is good and spare, mostly without feeling too abbreviated. In general, it's nice to have a bit of a challenge, to have to fill in some of the emotional details for oneself, though there are a few points of character development and relationships on which it might have been nice to have a bit more to go on; at times I felt more like I was giving the author the benefit of the doubt than accepting a challenge. In any case, the novel is never boring, even the parts that are just the narrator whining—but interestingly, I didn't find the bits that would usually be called action sequences particularly more exciting than the rest; the book is very evenly paced.

As for the problems.... Well, most of the things I found problematic about the novel came at me full-force with the introduction; I half-suspect the author of trying to warn off the faint of heart. So if you can get through that, you know what you're in for, and at least things don't get much worse. The introduction frames the whole novel as a personal letter from the narrator to his parents and advertises that we're in for an abrasive read. The intro is clumsily written at various levels, and though I'd like to think that's on purpose because it's supposed to be a personal letter, I frankly suspect the author was just trying too hard to get a certain feel and not paying much attention to the details. The letter-frame (and the attitude of the narrator in writing it) isn't necessarily plausible in the context of the whole book, but it's an integral part of the way it's written. There are a number of such small implausibilities, as well as a couple of discontinuities and general factual unlikelihoods, scattered throughout the book, along with more low-level editing problems, but it's not bad for a first novel.

As the book goes on, the character changes and one gets more used to his abrasiveness anyway, so it ceases to interfere as much. One can fall into the rhythm and special logic of the story and be captivated by its charms—and I, at least, certainly was....less

Like this review? yes

1 comments

Jason rated it:

01/04/08

Read in January, 2008

(My full review of this book is much longer than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

I'm sure some of you must think of it as an insult when I occasionally refer to a book here as "weird;" but believe it or not, so-called "weird fiction" or "weird lit" is in fact a legitimate genre, originally coined by the Romantic writers of the 1800s to describe the absolute strangest...more (My full review of this book is much longer than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

I'm sure some of you must think of it as an insult when I occasionally refer to a book here as "weird;" but believe it or not, so-called "weird fiction" or "weird lit" is in fact a legitimate genre, originally coined by the Romantic writers of the 1800s to describe the absolute strangest of the moody, atmospheric novels they were all pumping out at the time. Let's not forget, after all, that the term "romantic" has changed quite considerably in our society since those days; although now primarily used to describe a gooey love story, in the Victorian Age it meant any story with a gloomy, dramatic, emotional feel, a direct rebellion by that generation against the rational Enlightenment of their parents' and grandparents' times. A direct line can be drawn, weird-lit fans claim, from such projects on the fringe of Romanticism (including such works as Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables, which I'll be reviewing here next week) straight to such modern genre masters as Stephen King, Clive Barker, Mark Danielewski and DB Weiss, often through such 20th-century transitionary writers as HP Lovecraft (the first weird author to add a distinctly otherworldly element to the genre) and William Burroughs (the first to add academic respectability).

One such contemporary weird writer, for example, is Californian Jeremy Shipp, a highly respected genre author who has nonetheless spent most of his career so far toiling in the unglamorous world of fanzines and the like; ah, but now Vacation is out, his very first traditional full-length prose novel, which in a perfect world will finally start helping him get the larger respect he deserves. Because frankly, Shipp is about as great a weird author as weird literature gets, even while acknowledging that there are certain weaknesses to the genre in general as well; that anyone who is a fan of strange stories and off-kilter characters is bound to love this novel, and in fact love it more passionately than the current weird authors they only think they love. This isn't going to stop many of you from intensely disliking it, don't get me wrong -- that's the dice roll you always take with genre work, as I'm seemingly always saying here, is that by its very nature you are simply going to have a split audience going right into page one -- but for those who click with stories about the hidden strange details of the cosmos that are very quietly buried among us all the time, you are sure to love this book with the burning intensity that you currently reserve for your Buffy DVDs.

Set in a world very similar to ours but not quite the same, the central premise behind Vacation is a fascinating one that reflects our times......less

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Geri rated it:

03/24/08

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: Dark Fiction/Bizzaro Lovers

Jeremy Shipp takes the reader on a psychological head-trip
through the eyes of Bernard Johnson. A thirty-five year old
intelligent man with a wild, incredible imagination. Bernard
is tormented with his dreams, fantasies, and nightmares.
The reader is taken through the door of a magic carpet ride
of adventure, but the ride doesn't end there. The ride
continues from the magic carpet of fantasy, through the
doors of the haunted house of fear. Each reader will be
taken through the same journ...more

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Keith rated it:

11/20/07

Read in October, 2007

ONE CAN ONLY PRAY to the Pax-dishing government conspiracy theorists that Jeremy C. Shipp's inaugural dip in deep end of the novel pool is not his last. And if the prayers do go unanswered, those still in the living world just lost the one thing that might make life worth living. Vacation is a surreal jaunt skittering across the calm surface of social norms (on an ocean that certainly doesn't exist) hellbent on splashing waves of ever-disturbing rings disrupting the way one thinks: As if you cou...more ONE CAN ONLY PRAY to the Pax-dishing government conspiracy theorists that Jeremy C. Shipp's inaugural dip in deep end of the novel pool is not his last. And if the prayers do go unanswered, those still in the living world just lost the one thing that might make life worth living. Vacation is a surreal jaunt skittering across the calm surface of social norms (on an ocean that certainly doesn't exist) hellbent on splashing waves of ever-disturbing rings disrupting the way one thinks: As if you could still think for yourself. And it deserves a fast read. Except that one might miss out on a rather grand experience that begs to be savored like an aged box wine. Read it like your life depended upon it. Then read it again; you'll be both happy and uncomfortable that you did.

From the cover snippet:

"It's time for blueblood Bernard Johnson to leave his boring life behind and go on The Vacation, a yearlong corporate-sponsored odyssey. But instead of seeing the world, Bernard is captured by terrorists, becomes a key figure in secret drug wars, and, worse, doesn't once miss his secure American Dream."

Yes, that is Vacation all summed up in a neat little literary bouquet garni dunked in a larger world of haggis. It is a valid description, but only like the word "water" can singularly describe the planet Earth. There is a lot going on under the verbal covers that make up the 158 pages of Vacation. And, while 158 pages may seem short, the world Shipp reveals nestled in those pages is a vast society of organized crime set on one of two sides: Either keep everyone from the truth or blast the truth around the world like a revolutionary gunshot. (The truth is something you'll have to read the book to learn)

Do yourself a favor. Take a blank sheet of paper and your favorite pen. Draw ten blank lines randomly on that piece of paper like a fill-in-the-blank test from grade school but without any questions. Now fill in those blanks with the most glorious adjectives that one might use to light up sentences meant to describe Vacation. Having read this book or not, no matter how creative you might be in choosing these words, you will have done Shipp and Vacation an injustice. The only way out of that hole is to buy the book and read it in your sleep. And hope the dream machine isn't broken.

...less

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Amelia rated it:

03/04/08

Read in March, 2008

Well, I have thought about this a lot over the last two days. In light of my last review, I wanted to be fair and yet, not over compensate. I vacillated between three and four stars for a while, but due to the fact that the book actually caused me to give up sleep (I stayed up until midnight reading the last few chapters, I had to see how it ended), I felt that it deserved the upgrade. Those of you who know how important my sleep is to me will understand that!

On my first attempt at this b...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

55 comments

Tracy rated it:

01/06/08

bookshelves: fiction

"Maybe God made a mistake, and he knows it.

Maybe before a god can become an all-knowing, all-seeing God, he has to create something to know about, and to see. So he reads up on how to create a Universe, and does the best he can, but in the end, no matter how much he wants to be a good God, no matter how hard he tries, things don't turn out the way he planned.

In fact, everything goes to shit."

I love this book. It is full of sentences and paragraphs as memorable as the one I ...more

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5 comments

Lance rated it:

01/28/08

Read in January, 2008

Jeremy Shipp has a unique and entertaining writing style. The 164 page VACATION demands the reader’s attention and should perhaps not be read just before bedtime or while operating heavy machinery. In fact, a second reading may be required to fully enjoy/appreciate the story. But it is definitely worth the effort. Shipp’s surreal and eery vision of the future (or maybe an alternate universe) seems to drift seamlessly between dream and reality. The tale of the battle between the haves a...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comments

Wandaful rated it:

11/24/07

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: Everyone

Awesome story
Awesome writing
Awesome author
Jeremy Shipp is currently taking the world (as we know it) by storm...!!!
Or is that, Jeremy (as we know him) is currently storming into the world ????
Either way, this writer is no storm in a tea cup.... although I have heard some sneaky rumours that he reads tea leaves for coconut monkeys.......
Go figure..!!!

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Peggy rated it:

02/06/08

I'm not sure exactly what I expected when I started Vacation, but suffice to say that it managed to both meet and confound all of those expectations.

For many, a novel of ideas is an excuse to be preachy and a novel that uses surreal images and dream-like prose is all flash and no substance.

Nothing could be further from the truth in Shipp's book.

Oh, there are ideas aplenty here: thought-provoking,history-laden, Big Time ideas about the nature of self and the nature of the unive...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

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Buffy rated it:

01/24/08

bookshelves: books-read-in-2008

Read in January, 2008

recommended to Buffy by: Jeremy
recommends it for: everyone!

Wow Jeremy! So I finished this book today and LOVED it! It was like the Island met Dean Koontz and had a baby . I loved how you would describe the situations the best though: "This is Don Quixote's psyche, This is Don Quixote on his deathbed, regaining his sanity."

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I didn't read any synopsis beforehand, and I am glad the whole book was a shock and each discovery led me closer to the truth, just like Mr. Johnson.

Thanks to: Jeremy Shipp

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

7 comments

Jo rated it:

01/25/08

bookshelves: fiction, horror

Read in January, 2008

recommended to Jo by: Jeremy Shipp

First e-book. The e-book part is fascinating. At first it was a lot of fun, but after about 30 pages, I wanted to hold it. I printed it out! Don't laugh at me. I am just old fashioned.

The story is detailed and believable. That is what makes it scary. You have to care. A lot of info and a lot to track.
Jeremy S. can write!
Recommend to those who like a scare. ...or are going on vacation!!!

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comments

☀ Zoey☮ marked it as to-read

02/28/08

bookshelves: to-read

I have never heard of this book until this site and from what I have read in the discription it looks extremely interesting. I can't wait to see where this book takes me, if it inspires and gives me a whole new understanding of life itself. If anybody has this book for lending please let me know ASAP:D!

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

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Ben rated it:

12/23/07

Read in December, 2007

To be honest I'm not sure I remotely know what this book is about, terrorism, drug-running, secret gardens, and sex changes, for sure, and the education system, probably, totalitarian societies, no doubt, but beyond that, can't say. But who cares, it's really good, and completely absorbing, and so what if Jeremy is obviously a complete wack-job, the dude can flat out write.

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Adriane rated it:

02/25/08

bookshelves: horror

Read in February, 2008

recommended to Adriane by: Jeremy Shipp
recommends it for: horror fans and those living outside of the box

A twisted-wicked sinfully delicious read. It spirals off the page but not for the timid or those with weak eimaginations. If you want to go on a "Vacation" in the likes that you have never experienced then pick up this book and turn the page and get ready! Excellent~!

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

3 comments

Krystin added it

04/15/08

Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: Anyone and everyone!

This has to be the most unique book I've read in a long time. I thought it would be good, but was pleasantly surprised with how amazing it was! I loved the plot, the characters, everything! I absolutely loved it, it is now one of my favorites!

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comments

Newjen rated it:

03/12/08

Read in March, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Like this review? yes

3 comments

Shards rated it:

03/03/08

Read in February, 2008

This book was very good, utterly trippy, if that is still a word. Once you pick it up, it's very hard to put it back down.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comments

Melissa rated it:

11/24/07

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: everyone!

This was an interesting read. I did not know what to expect, and as I soon found out - the Author keeps you guessing throught the whole book. I enjoyed it and would definately read it again.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comments

Isabella marked it as to-read

01/30/08

bookshelves: to-read

Being an old-school reader I ordered a (real, physical) copy of this book rather than getting the e-book version.

Hopefully soon to arrive and be read.

Like this review? yes

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book data (includes all editions)

avg rating (all editions): 4.17 (64 ratings)
avg rating (this edition): 4.15 (62 ratings)
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"This is the Torture Room. But don't let the name fool you. This is a tent, not a room." more quotes »

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