So I finished this book earlier today, and here I am trying to find the right words to sum up my thoughts. Minutes pass, and still I am searching for those words. This is one of those books that leaves me wondering what the hell I just read.

As you see by my 3-star rating, I'm left straddling middle ground. Early on, I'd have given this 5 stars. By midway, that dropped to the 3 stars. The end left me wondering why I'd read this book to begin with. Given my wide range of feelings here, I stuck with the midway point of 3 stars. This is likely going to be one of those divisive books that most people will either love or hate.

The writing itself is totally engaging. I truly enjoyed Skinner's style.

The plot was, well, I don't know what it was. In the midst of all the strange stuff and odd humor, there was certainly a shining nugget, a kind of life lesson and philosophical message. But the plot just got too weird to allow any sort of contemplation of that nugget. I'm not even sure whether the glimmer of depth was my imagination. Then there's the other part of it, the part that struck me as a parent, as a mother. Sometimes I was literally squirming. Aspects were outrageous in a borderline offensive way. Reading it made me uncomfortable.

This is dark humor, which I like. It also leaned into a sort of childish humor, or maybe it's man humor. You know, the kind of stuff we females rarely even crack a smile at, while our male counterparts are rolling on the floor busting their guts in hysterical laughter. So much for gender equality. Please don't send me hate mail. I just found a lot of the humor either too silly or too far-reaching in its absurdity.

And the main character. I didn't like him. I couldn't. There was nothing there to like. I wanted to slap him out of his stupor. The book is written in first person, from the perspective of a man I didn't like, whose man-child nonsense and pure ignorance at equal turns made me laugh, sigh with disbelief, and want to hit something.

Then we have the timeline. The story jumps around a lot. To the author's credit, this aspect is always clear. I knew where I was in the timeline, but I quickly tired of all the time machine travel.

And there you have it. Try the book for yourself. Or don't. I don't know.

*I received an advanced ebook copy from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.* ( )