Going Bovine

I had heard some rave reviews of Libba Bray's Going Bovine so I was excited to pick up a copy.  Within the first 5 pages, I discovered that this is one Young Adult novel I would not be sharing with my students.  I will freely admit that I am a fairly liberal teacher in terms of what I allow my students to read in the classroom.  There are times that I ask students to bring a signed permission slip from a parent for books that are a bit more mature.


That being said, I'm not sure that I would even encourage a student to read Going Bovine.  Bray's novel follows Cameron, a total slacker high school student, who has been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disorder or Mad Cow disease. 

Cameron begins a journey, Don Quixote style, to find the mysterious Dr. X who will provide the cure for him.  Having never read Don Quixote perhaps I'm missing some vital connection that would have made this missive make more sense.  Cameron is hospitalized, so it appears that this journey is actually an hallucination, but I'm never quite sure.  Accompanying him on his journey is Gonzo, a hypochondriac dwarf who he first meets in the boys' bathroom at school while smoking pot and happens to be his hospital room mate,  and Dulce an angelic girl with pink hair and wings who appears only to Cameron. Gonzo and Cameron eventually meet up with a yard gnome named Baldur. 

I cannot begin to summarize or describe the rest of the story as it truly rambled and confused me.  Now, I will admit, that I read the last quarter of the novel while taking pain killers.  However, I was confused far before I reached that point.

I was so disappointed in this novel.  I truly enjoyed Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty.  I think that Bray should stick with the historical fiction and romance versus the strange novel that is Going Bovine.