This is the story of Colin and Dermot Brennan, two brothers that used to be pretty tight growing up, and have now fallen apart. The book begins with a hung-over Colin trying to keep his stomach's contents in, and a numb, weary Dermont heading home after a season in Ireland.

***mild spoilers***
19-year-old Colin, who works at a shoe store full time, is tumbling down a road of self-destruction at full speed, hanging out with the wrong guys, doing drugs and drinking himself inconscious on a regular basis.
Dermot, 23, does nothing but 'cry over his drink' about his ex-girlfriend and work at a parking lot instead of writing, which is his dream.
Or was his dream. Both kids are torn by grief and dealing with it the worst possible way. Dermont is heartbroken after 'the love of his life' dumped him, and Colin is mourning the death of his two best friends the year before.
***end of mild spoilers***

I had to force myself to finish this book. The story is awfully slow in unfolding, but the worst part is the attempts of the author of capturing young men's talk and spirit. 90% of the characters are guys, which are constantly swearing, hitting on girls, getting wasted and bickering at each other. It gets real old real fast, especially the slang and cursing. There are some gruesome descriptions in there, too, like a minute description of what it feels like to vomit after a night of excesses. I so didn't need to read that.

Redeeming features: the end. It is not poetry, but explains a lot. It *is* satisfying to see these kids have a reasonable resolution after all they have been through. The music references were nice to have around, too. And there is *one* likeable character, Eric, who sadly doesn't get much time 'on stage'.

Male readers in their thirties might, I repeat, *might* enjoy this book. ( )

This was an ER-book.

Set in 1994's Cape Cod, [The Running Waves] tells the story of the Brenann brothers Colin and Dermot. Both the boys' life are heading down two different, yet equally destructive, paths; Colin drinking and abusing drugs in order to escape and forget, and Dermot neglecting following his dreams and thus throwing his life away. As the story progresses the truth behind last summers tragedy unfolds, and we watch as the brothers comes to terms with the ordeal and finally begins healing.

Overall I really enjoyed this novel. It took me quite some time getting into the story; there's a lot of words and very little actually happening, but when I did I enjoyed it. The novel is also a bit too heavy on the dialouge - speaking of which was really silly at times. A bit muddy to begin with, but well worth trudging through! ( )

The Running Waves tells the story of two brothers, Colin and Dermot. Colin is in the process of destroying his life with booze and drugs after the death of his two friends, and Dermot is basically doing nothing with his life after being dumped by what's later revealed to be a summer love. The book has good intentions, and while it was an easy read, I really couldn't get into it. Dermot's problems especially seemed very strange to me, and I couldn't understand why he was so broken up a year after being dumped by his summer fling. Colin's grief and his reactions to it were a lot more realistic, but the constant descriptions of him being high and drunk and talking to his friends as if they're all gang members got very old. I know the authors were trying to make the language authentic, but I shuddered every time I read the nicknames and tough guy speak. The conclusion was quite sudden and seemed incredibly simple, which may be true to life in these situations but really didn't seem as if it needed a year to get to. The story just seemed like a lot of filler and no real direction. The dialogue was often very odd as well.

The format turned me off a lot. It was an online novel, and couldn't be downloaded as a pdf. The reader program on the website was extremely annoying. I'd say making it available as a pdf file and allowing it to be downloaded and saved to the computer would be really helpful. ( )