In short, this book is totally insane.

Technically taking place during the course of a single afternoon, The Tetherballs of Bougainville is somehow a sprawling, chaotic, and hilarious journey through the verbose psycho-ramblings of the 13-year old narrator.

The spectacular first portion of the book starts with the botched execution of the main character's father who is then released into the New Jersey Discretionary Execution Program, where he could be instantly killed by the authorities at any time and under any circumstance. It gets even weirder from there, with the second half of the book structured as a movie review nested inside of a script for a play.

Tetherballs really hard to describe, and certainly not for everyone. The writing reminds me of David Foster Wallace, where words coalesce to create impossible sentences that feel like they were written by either a genius or a mental patient.

Recommended for people with a high tolerance for weirdness.