Apr 012015
 

Welcome to America, kid.

Ariel (ah-riel) is adopted into a middle-class American family after he survives the massacre of his entire village during a civil war by dressing as a clown and hiding in a refrigerator.

He ends up in summer camp. A very particular type of summer camp. Digital detox camp, filled with all the horribleness of summer camp.

Also, a giant evil corporation.

A parallel story of an Arctic mission gone wrong. A parallel story of a melting man bent on revenge.

The book is at times heartbreaking, funny, wicked, irreverent, and wrong. And yet so very right.

Feb 232015
 

In a small, midwestern American town called Ealing, Iowa two boys are misfits who are bored, in the way people can only be bored growing up in a small town. Modern suburban-style rural sprawl clash with high school jock politics and the underage smoking of cigarettes and drinking of beer. Smith paints a very clear picture of why you shouldn’t move to the country so your children can grow up safe… and then he takes the story on a giant bug-fuelled long walk of a short pier. It’s insane but it somehow works. An homage to Vonnegut at his best.