Cam has an extremely rare neurological disease – the equivalent of mad cow for humans – which causes heaving spasms, hallucinations, and has him bedridden in the hospital in the very, very faint hope that experimental treatment may cure him.īut then, Cam gets a visit from a strange, beautiful angel with spray painted wings and hot pink hair – Dulcie’s her name.

But soon, Cam’s aimless existence takes new direction when he learns that he is sick. He goes to classes and does the bare minimum to pass, and smokes a lot of weed. Cam really doesn’t care about…well, anything. Privileged, intelligent enough, solidly middle class, son of two professor parents and twin brother to a popular cheerleader sister who can do no wrong. He’s an apathetic, modern day impersonation of Holden Caufield. And I am completely infatuated with Libba Bray’s writing right now. Although, just like with Thea, it didn’t quite make it, I still loved it to bits. The idea of this book was so promising, I had an allocated slot for it in my top 10 of 2009. I loved Going Bovine – there’s no other way to say it.Īna: From the get go, I thought the book had Ana-Crack (thanks, Thea) written all over it: unreliable narrator + humour = win. In fact, both Ana and I were SO stoked for Going Bovine that we both began the book with expectations that it would crack our top 10 of 2009 lists! And though this novel didn’t quite make my top reads list, it comes pretty gorram close.

Thea: As we’ve said above, both Ana and I were *extremely* excited for Going Bovine – it came highly recommended by bloggers, official critics and friends alike. With the help of a death-obsessed, video-gaming dwarf and a yard gnome, Cam sets off on the mother of all road trips through a twisted America into the heart of what matters most. She tells Cam there is a cure-if he’s willing to go in search of it. Hope arrives in the winged form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel/possible hallucination with a bad sugar habit. But that’s before he’s given some bad news: he’s sick and he’s going to die. Bray’s writing, we eagerly plunged into Going Bovine.Īll 16-year-old Cameron wants is to get through high school-and life in general-with a minimum of effort. And, as Thea was a fan of A Great and Terrible Beauty (and will seriously, honest to god finish reading and reviewing the Gemma Doyle books soon), and Ana was excited to try Ms. Why did we read this book: We have heard nothing but rave reviews for Libba Bray’s newest novel. Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers Genre: Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Literature, Young Adult

Going bovine by libba bray