Where's Unimportant

I'm going to write a more complete review on my blog after a second reading, but here's the ‘first impressions' review.

Jack Addington has a past that many of us would envy. He has traveled the world and seen a lot. His present, though, is a form of hell that many of us have experienced: a soul-destroying job with supervisors who only care about climbing the ladder, maximizing profits, and covering their own asses. Jack's experience of the world is filtered through the lens of both boredom and apathy. Like i would with any novel written in the first person limited POV, I treated the narrator as unreliable. Since we see the world entirely through Jack's eyes, we have no idea what s real and what's fake. That murkiness is further intensified by Jack's flashbacks to his more exciting youth, a youth that often included plenty of chemicals. His present is also filled with chemicals; he is prescribed psychiatric medication by his psychiatrist.

My first marginal note was about the POV. 1st person present immediately draws attention to itself. It's recently become common among MFA Graduates. That being said, once I settled into the novel, I understood why that POV was chosen. A quarter of the way through and I barely noticed it anymore.

My only complaint with the novel - besides the POV issue, which is a stylistic choice, not a technical flaw - was Jack's only work friend, Uri. To me, Uri seemed to be the voice of the author on social issues. That may or not not be Uri's purpose, but that's what it certainly felt like to me. The intrusion of the Authorial Voice always makes me aware that I am reading.

The ending of the book lends support to my belief that Jack is an unreliable narrator. The end, in fact, is the reason I chose to wait awhile before writing any review at all. I really needed time to mull it over. This isn't a book that immediately slips away as soon as you start reading something else. It creeps into your thoughts and you're left considering many things. I highly recommend this book.

—-typed on an iPad, so probably littered with spelling errors. My apologies if so.