Chicagoland

by Aaron Rath

From the moment Scott had himself duct-taped to the wall as a college prank, his fate was sealed. As a graduate with piles of debt and no practical skills other than being slightly famous on the internet, his options are limited. Not that he wants just a girlfriend, a nice mountain view, and to retire as a dot-com millionaire before his twenty-fifth birthday. What he gets is a string of increasingly calamitous first dates and an entry-level job doing web design in desolate Chicagoland suburbia. It's an inauspicious start, but Scott knows there's more adventure out there, even if he has to manufacture it himself. He will climb the tallest mountain (well, at least he'll drive to Colorado and go on a long hike), stop at nothing in his pursuit of fame or fortune (does being mentioned on a page-a-day calendar count?), and attempt what his best friend Moriarty says is the most impossible task of them picking up a waitress while she's on duty. Displaying tongue-twisting wordplay and confused, beer-soaked soul-searching, Chicagoland is part humorous and heartbreaking coming-of-age novel, part travelogue, and 100% gluten-free. (May contain assorted nuts.)

Genres: Fiction

323 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 3, 2013

About the author

Aaron has a degree in physics from Oberlin College but has spent most of his adult life playing with computers one way or another as a web developer, coder, graphic artist, tech support agent, and server admin. Over the years he has dabbled in more than thirty different jobs, including farm hand, dot-com vice president, carpenter's assistant, band manager, book editor, book store clerk, nuclear physicist, and video editor. Aaron has sold frisbees to dogs on the Internet, sold toys out of a guy's basement, and co-written a book about darts that he's pretty sure not a single person ever purchased or read.

He has moved more than thirty times, once threw a dart so that it pierced the tail end of another dart like Robin Hood, can hold his breath longer than four minutes, and one time dropped a penny that landed on edge and just stuck there without any apparent alien intervention.

Aaron enjoys disc golf and brewing his own beer. He lives on a mountainside near scenic Durango, Colorado, with his wife and two children. "Chicagoland" is his first published novel.

Reviews

[Mark Panning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I know the author and so this is not an unbiased review. He is in fact indirectly responsible for me annoying my daughters with spoonerisms frequently. That being said, this is a darn good book. It's personal and funny. I have to imagine any of us who have made it past our twenties can identify with the core of the story, as who didn't spend a large fraction of that decade feeling vaguely lost? Give it a try.

[Drew Patty · Rating 5 out of 5]

The perfect book to read curled up on your couch during a scold nap -- er, cold snap. If you mixed Dave Barry with Bill Bryson, you'd have some sort of monster person with two heads. But if you like their writing style, you'll surely enjoy Aaron Rath's delightful prose.

Warning: Do not read this book while drinking a beverage, lest you find yourself spitting out your drink while trying not to laugh.