“A man in our hometown had been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob’s disease, the human variant of mad cow disease. Going Bovine was sparked by a story Bray’s mother told her. They expected a Going Bovine-type book, not gothic historical fantasy.” Bray says it should actually be the other way around: when she wrote the Gemma Doyle books her “close friends were thrown for a loop. Readers of the Gemma Doyle books may wonder if this is the same author. Now in her tremendously original and compulsively readable picaresque Going Bovine, Bray goes all-out to explore her inner weird and has produced a provocative road novel for the 21st century. As she told BookPage while sitting on that couch, “It’s hard to be an Evil Author Overlord™ with an aching back.”įans of Bray’s best-selling Gemma Doyle trilogy (beginning with A Great and Terrible Beauty) who have sought out her stories in anthologies such as The Restless Dead and 21 Proms will be familiar with her manner of pulling humor out of the darkest corners of life. Although the fact that it contains the world’s most uncomfortable couch may be her downfall.

Senior Secondary and young adult readers although those that like the weird and the imaginative will love this story.Libba Bray’s secret underground lair, from which one day she plans to rule the universe, is, interestingly enough an exact replica of her living room in Brooklyn. In a nut shell this novel poses this dilemma- “everything within us is born to live, and yet, we die”. I can tell you no more without giving anything away, you have to experience it yourself. The fantasy is brilliant and Libba Bray’s command of the plot of this story is outstanding. The rest of the book is an account from Cameron’s point of view of his slow deterioration towards death. As the CJD spuds in, Cameron starts to hallucinate and fantasise about all the things he remembers or has experienced in his life so far.Ĭameron and Gonzo then go on a road trip chasing DrX and a cure for Cameron’s illness. Gloomy? Not so.Ĭameron goes into hospital and a dwarf called Gonzo comes into the same ward. Then his body gives out on him and he is diagnosed with mad cow disease, CJD, a disease that attacks the brain drives you mad and then you die.

The first 4 or 5 chapters are the key to understanding this novel, but after that you are on your own but then isn’t this the same for us all?Ĭameron Smith is 16 years old, he is a virgin with aspirations, he loves movies and Staci Johnson but can’t seem to get it together. It is the sort of book that invites you to go with the flow and if you can’t then you’re going to struggle.

So many people told me to read this book, so I did, all of it and I still don’t know where I stand with it.

Going bovine by libba bray