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Book Review of The Book of Dave

The Book of Dave
The Book of Dave
Author: Will Self
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Hardcover
heyteacher-tpm avatar reviewed on + 35 more book reviews


I heard about this book on NPR and simply had to have it - after weeks of talking about it, my best friend finally got it for me as an early birthday gift. I was so excited to read it, I prepared myself to do nothing else for an entire weekend.

But once I started it, I just felt like I was slogging through. The premise was so intriguing to me - Dave, an average London cabbie, is frustrated by just about everything in life and he keeps a diary of sorts. He buries it away and it is found 500 years later in a post-apocalypse England. The problems I had getting into it were due to the phonetically tuned writing, mostly, and the problem of keeping characters straight in my head. My attention would often wander, which is always a sign that I'm just not that into a book.

I'm sure if I could have managed to really delve into this book, I would have loved it. I have read and heard wonderful things about it - but it just wasn't for me. Someone with more time and perhaps more determination would probably really enjoy it.