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The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering: A Novel
A darkly comic, wildly original novel of a family in flight from the law, set in a near-future American dystopia.
In an America of the semi-distant future, human knowledge has reverted to a pre-Copernican state. Science and religion are diminished to fairy tales, and Earth once again occupies the lonely center of the universe, the stars and planets mere etchings on the glass globe that encases it. But when an ancient bunker containing a perfectly preserved space vehicle is discovered beneath the ruins of Cape Canaveral, it has the power to turn this retrograde world inside out.
Enter the miscreant Van Zandt clan, whose run-ins with the law leave them with a no-win test-pilot the spacecraft together as a family, or be sent separately to prison for life. Their decision leads to some freakish slapstick, one nasty bonfire, and a dissolute trek across the ass-end of an all-too-familiar America.
As told to his daughter by Rowan, the Van Zandt son who flees the ashes of his family in search of a new one, the story is a darkly comic road trip that pits the simple hell of solitude against the messy consolations of togetherness.
Jeffrey Rotter's The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering is an indelible vision of a future in which we might one day live.
In an America of the semi-distant future, human knowledge has reverted to a pre-Copernican state. Science and religion are diminished to fairy tales, and Earth once again occupies the lonely center of the universe, the stars and planets mere etchings on the glass globe that encases it. But when an ancient bunker containing a perfectly preserved space vehicle is discovered beneath the ruins of Cape Canaveral, it has the power to turn this retrograde world inside out.
Enter the miscreant Van Zandt clan, whose run-ins with the law leave them with a no-win test-pilot the spacecraft together as a family, or be sent separately to prison for life. Their decision leads to some freakish slapstick, one nasty bonfire, and a dissolute trek across the ass-end of an all-too-familiar America.
As told to his daughter by Rowan, the Van Zandt son who flees the ashes of his family in search of a new one, the story is a darkly comic road trip that pits the simple hell of solitude against the messy consolations of togetherness.
Jeffrey Rotter's The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering is an indelible vision of a future in which we might one day live.
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 7, 2015
4 people are currently reading
624 people want to read
About the author
Jeffrey Rotter
4 books13 followersJeffrey Rotter is the author of The Unknown Knowns, which was a New York Times Editor's Choice. His writing has appeared in The Oxford American, The New York Observer, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. He has assembled modular furnishings at NORAD, dressed up as Clifford the Big Red Dog for Texas school children, and written romance copy for flower-seed packets. He now resides in Brooklyn, New York, where he's edging ever closer to Green-Wood Cemetery and the eternal verdict of the earthworm.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
April 17, 2015
Neither Darkly Comic Nor Wildly Original
A friend of mine who teaches creative writing in college and graduate school once told me that he had to relearn everything he knew from the highly regarded MFA creative writing program where he earned his MFA degree, before he started writing excellent speculative fiction. Had Jeffrey Rotter opted to follow the same career path, I would be writing a superb review of his latest novel, "The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering", praising him for his fine writing and clever speculative fictional imagination. However, contrary to the claims made by his publisher, his novel is neither "darkly comic" nor "wildly original"; instead, it reads like a very pale reflection of some memorable Ray Bradbury novel crossed with another from J. G. Ballard, with maybe a mediocre blend of dark humor of the kind practiced by the likes of writer Douglas Adams and Monty Python. It is unquestionably the least distinguished novel I have seen from an alumnus of a New York City MFA creative writing program that should be viewed as one of America's finest. It demonstrates yet again that yet another mainstream literary fiction writer who claims to be writing notable speculative fiction isn't, incapable of practicing what J. G. Ballard and William Gibson have dubbed the "tool kit of science fiction".
"The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering" is a work of fiction heavily pregnant with logical inconsistencies of the kind inexcusable to those who have devoted entire careers writing memorable, truly first rate, speculative fiction. Rotter doesn't show how a far future America capable of keeping some form of jet travel and selling a popular soft drink like Fanta, would relegate to the status of mythology, early 21st Century astronomy and astrophysics. This is worth noting when early 20th Century Western civilization - including Japan - had a substantially superior understanding of astronomy, astrophysics and other physical sciences, than the dystopian future America he depicts. It is also incomprehensible how the Van Zandt family was able to use centuries-old NASA training videos at Cape Cannibal - by viewing truly ancient video monitors that somehow managed to perform well after remaining dormant for centuries. Nor should he be commended for changing the names of well-known cities, countries and places like Los Angeles ("Losang"), Tucson ("Two-Son"), Chile ("Chilly") and Cape Canaveral ("Cape Cannibal") when others have excelled in creating memorable, and realistic, futuristic versions of English in their speculative fiction. As a work of dystopian fiction, "The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering" pales greatly in comparison with such recent notable novels like Peter Heller's "The Dog Stars", Davide Longo's "The Last Man Standing" and especially, Emmi Itäranta's "Memory of Water"; the latter, a far more profound work of speculative fiction than Rotter's latest and one that should be viewed as an instant classic of dystopian speculative fiction. This year is shaping up to becoming a great year of notable new works of speculative fiction, with Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Buried Giant" as the only distinguished one I have seen written by a mainstream literary fiction writer; in stark contrast with Ishiguro's, Rotter's latest consists of words not worth remembering at all.
A friend of mine who teaches creative writing in college and graduate school once told me that he had to relearn everything he knew from the highly regarded MFA creative writing program where he earned his MFA degree, before he started writing excellent speculative fiction. Had Jeffrey Rotter opted to follow the same career path, I would be writing a superb review of his latest novel, "The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering", praising him for his fine writing and clever speculative fictional imagination. However, contrary to the claims made by his publisher, his novel is neither "darkly comic" nor "wildly original"; instead, it reads like a very pale reflection of some memorable Ray Bradbury novel crossed with another from J. G. Ballard, with maybe a mediocre blend of dark humor of the kind practiced by the likes of writer Douglas Adams and Monty Python. It is unquestionably the least distinguished novel I have seen from an alumnus of a New York City MFA creative writing program that should be viewed as one of America's finest. It demonstrates yet again that yet another mainstream literary fiction writer who claims to be writing notable speculative fiction isn't, incapable of practicing what J. G. Ballard and William Gibson have dubbed the "tool kit of science fiction".
"The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering" is a work of fiction heavily pregnant with logical inconsistencies of the kind inexcusable to those who have devoted entire careers writing memorable, truly first rate, speculative fiction. Rotter doesn't show how a far future America capable of keeping some form of jet travel and selling a popular soft drink like Fanta, would relegate to the status of mythology, early 21st Century astronomy and astrophysics. This is worth noting when early 20th Century Western civilization - including Japan - had a substantially superior understanding of astronomy, astrophysics and other physical sciences, than the dystopian future America he depicts. It is also incomprehensible how the Van Zandt family was able to use centuries-old NASA training videos at Cape Cannibal - by viewing truly ancient video monitors that somehow managed to perform well after remaining dormant for centuries. Nor should he be commended for changing the names of well-known cities, countries and places like Los Angeles ("Losang"), Tucson ("Two-Son"), Chile ("Chilly") and Cape Canaveral ("Cape Cannibal") when others have excelled in creating memorable, and realistic, futuristic versions of English in their speculative fiction. As a work of dystopian fiction, "The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering" pales greatly in comparison with such recent notable novels like Peter Heller's "The Dog Stars", Davide Longo's "The Last Man Standing" and especially, Emmi Itäranta's "Memory of Water"; the latter, a far more profound work of speculative fiction than Rotter's latest and one that should be viewed as an instant classic of dystopian speculative fiction. This year is shaping up to becoming a great year of notable new works of speculative fiction, with Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Buried Giant" as the only distinguished one I have seen written by a mainstream literary fiction writer; in stark contrast with Ishiguro's, Rotter's latest consists of words not worth remembering at all.
November 30, 2020
I'm pretty sick of dystopia, to be frank and upfront right off the bat here. Though, truly, dystopian novels are just the latest version of the western, science fiction, and fantasy genres, where the basic rules of society have broken down to create a scarier, more dangerous place in which characters can react.
Jeffrey Rotter's The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering is a smarter dystopian novel, set in the "not-too-distant-future" when two mammoth corporations vie for control of North America. Rotter employs some dystopian cliches, such as misspellings (Miamy, Arizone, hiway, Caribeen, etc.), but the world he populates with the impulse-control-compromised Van Zandt family is nuanced. While unforgiving, there is compassion and humanity. While bleak, there is humor and hope. Rotter manages this by framing the book as a letter from father to daughter, though he does it lightly, and I read big chunks of the book without that in mind.
In the novel, it's unclear what brought civilization to this point, but the true horror — the dystopia — is that society has turned its back on knowledge, wants no part of science. Published in 2015, though, this book didn't have the benefit of seeing an entire U.S. political party pick up the idea as a campaign slogan, so the author is proved prescient.
If we had a 10-star scale, I would have given this a 7, but I'm rounding up to 4 on the 5-star scale because I think I'll be thinking about this book for a while.
Jeffrey Rotter's The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering is a smarter dystopian novel, set in the "not-too-distant-future" when two mammoth corporations vie for control of North America. Rotter employs some dystopian cliches, such as misspellings (Miamy, Arizone, hiway, Caribeen, etc.), but the world he populates with the impulse-control-compromised Van Zandt family is nuanced. While unforgiving, there is compassion and humanity. While bleak, there is humor and hope. Rotter manages this by framing the book as a letter from father to daughter, though he does it lightly, and I read big chunks of the book without that in mind.
In the novel, it's unclear what brought civilization to this point, but the true horror — the dystopia — is that society has turned its back on knowledge, wants no part of science. Published in 2015, though, this book didn't have the benefit of seeing an entire U.S. political party pick up the idea as a campaign slogan, so the author is proved prescient.
If we had a 10-star scale, I would have given this a 7, but I'm rounding up to 4 on the 5-star scale because I think I'll be thinking about this book for a while.
March 14, 2020
I finished it because it‘s quite short and because I did believe it was going somewhere. The setting was promising, dystopian America run by capitalism and having lost most education and culture, except we don’t really get any details so there’s nothing to miss or feel emotions about. I like a space travel plot, except it quickly stops being about space travel. The characters have that problem of being unmotivated puppets doing whatever is needed to make something else happen, and no one has an arc. And also the female characters are passive and mostly victims. So that’s not great.
My actual useful critique though is this: The cover makes it look like a YA novel, plus the length and the teenage protagonist. It’s not. Like, it’d be fine for an actual young adult because I believe reading content doesn’t need to be age restricted once you’re a teen. But for a younger kid who likes to read out of the children’s section, woof no. It’s very violent and there’s ongoing domestic sexual abuse.
Oh and one more thing? Why Townes Van Zandt? It’s such a weirdly specific detail that also doesn’t do anything except make me feel bad that he got dragged into it.
My actual useful critique though is this: The cover makes it look like a YA novel, plus the length and the teenage protagonist. It’s not. Like, it’d be fine for an actual young adult because I believe reading content doesn’t need to be age restricted once you’re a teen. But for a younger kid who likes to read out of the children’s section, woof no. It’s very violent and there’s ongoing domestic sexual abuse.
Oh and one more thing? Why Townes Van Zandt? It’s such a weirdly specific detail that also doesn’t do anything except make me feel bad that he got dragged into it.
April 8, 2015
Book Review & Giveaway: In its brief concept description, the publisher described The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering by Jeffrey Rotter as “A Clockwork Orange with a Huck Finn heart.” Now that got my attention and also colored the way I looked at this near-future dystopian novel while reading it. In some ways, I think the publisher nailed it, and that description illustrates both the novel’s strength and possibly its weakness. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this twisted tale or I wouldn’t be reviewing it, much less offering a giveaway for a copy you can win. I’m just giving you a heads up that this one is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Read the rest of my online review to see if it appeals to you and, if it does, be sure to enter our giveaway at http://popcornreads.com/?p=8298.
September 7, 2019
This was a book I read right--in a few sustained bursts, knowing I'd revisit it because I was enjoying it but wanted to go back and look closer. I don't know if this book was written right, though, because the structure, while ultimately satisfying, was head-scratching. I loved the heady translation I found myself doing to understand sentences, but Rotter reminds me of what I hate about my own writing: an aversion to simplicity and directness and plain old verbs like "was" and "is." Still, I dog-eared a lot of passages because they were funny and sad and that is my life:
"The flamingo is not a flightless bird, only unmotivated."
"The cardio room contained its usual implements of false hope, a bike with no wheels, sandbags to be toted from here to there and back again, a rowboat that went nowhere."
"Gravity's tether...drew tighter as you approached a planetary body. In the vast blanks between, however, it had no claim on you. Like family, gravity was one of those things that you never miss until it's gone."
"To my mind claustrophobia is not only the fear of being buried alive. It's worse, a reminder that you are alone in life as well, an aberration surrounded by everything that is not you. The grave is a symbol of our main situation: solitude."
"The flamingo is not a flightless bird, only unmotivated."
"The cardio room contained its usual implements of false hope, a bike with no wheels, sandbags to be toted from here to there and back again, a rowboat that went nowhere."
"Gravity's tether...drew tighter as you approached a planetary body. In the vast blanks between, however, it had no claim on you. Like family, gravity was one of those things that you never miss until it's gone."
"To my mind claustrophobia is not only the fear of being buried alive. It's worse, a reminder that you are alone in life as well, an aberration surrounded by everything that is not you. The grave is a symbol of our main situation: solitude."
November 14, 2024
I tried really hard to like this book. It jumps around and some of the decision making skills are... Lacking. Like the crashing of the bus, and then who TF is Orange Tan? Is he a hallucination? Also I stopped as soon as I realized he named his daughter after his teenage lover who left him for his brother. It also bugged me so bad when his brother and dad BLAMED him for his mother's suicide?? Then I find out they're all on drugs. Great okay maybe that explains some of the decisions and back and forth.
The book spans over many many years so it's hard to keep track of where you are in the timeline.
The cherry on the top? The reviews on the back praise the book (about dystopia, poverty, drugs, and suicide) for being... Wait for it.... Funny.
This book. Funny.
Yeah maybe I'm just too dense to get it but I can't recommend this book. I couldn't even finish it.
The book spans over many many years so it's hard to keep track of where you are in the timeline.
The cherry on the top? The reviews on the back praise the book (about dystopia, poverty, drugs, and suicide) for being... Wait for it.... Funny.
This book. Funny.
Yeah maybe I'm just too dense to get it but I can't recommend this book. I couldn't even finish it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 2, 2020
I had to fight my way to the end of this book.
-
I'm the sort of person who can't stand to leave something unfinished, and with reading that usually isn't a challenge. This book was an exception. It began optimistically enough: the nonconventional and dysfunctional family sharing themes with The Glass Castle and the descriptions of outer space and technology reminding me of Ender's Game. But this books fell very, very short of both.
Story alone - without even touching on the uncomfortable descriptions of all female characters in this book - felt confused and pointless. I left this book dissatisfied and frustrated, immediately searching for another book to wash the bad taste out of my mouth.
-
I'm the sort of person who can't stand to leave something unfinished, and with reading that usually isn't a challenge. This book was an exception. It began optimistically enough: the nonconventional and dysfunctional family sharing themes with The Glass Castle and the descriptions of outer space and technology reminding me of Ender's Game. But this books fell very, very short of both.
Story alone - without even touching on the uncomfortable descriptions of all female characters in this book - felt confused and pointless. I left this book dissatisfied and frustrated, immediately searching for another book to wash the bad taste out of my mouth.
January 30, 2020
2.5 stars
I'm not sure I've ever been endeared to the writing style of poor grammar and spelling on behalf of getting into the character's head. I understand the concept behind it but so often if feels shoehorned in where at other times things are written just as proper as can be. Regardless this was certainly a unique little story but otherwise odd in a good way, but didn't resonate with me as I had hoped from reading the interesting synopsis, clever title and enthralling book cover.
I'm not sure I've ever been endeared to the writing style of poor grammar and spelling on behalf of getting into the character's head. I understand the concept behind it but so often if feels shoehorned in where at other times things are written just as proper as can be. Regardless this was certainly a unique little story but otherwise odd in a good way, but didn't resonate with me as I had hoped from reading the interesting synopsis, clever title and enthralling book cover.
April 13, 2022
2.5/5
This book really was just a bunch of words. I expected much more from it. More about stars and space but it was just a slow retelling of the MC’s life and it didn’t really make me feel anything.
This book really was just a bunch of words. I expected much more from it. More about stars and space but it was just a slow retelling of the MC’s life and it didn’t really make me feel anything.
August 29, 2019
If a bit confusing in its chronology at times, Rotter's worldbuilding and awesome, sure-footed prose more than make up for it.
November 27, 2019
Reminded me a bit of Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut.
February 28, 2017
I went back and forth a lot on this book. I enjoyed the concept and found the dialect to be interesting without being too difficult to understand. The anti-intellectualism of this particular dystopian future feels very relevant in the age of Trump. I found it to be a little too long in the end and I think it would have made a better novella or longish short story than novel, but I'm giving it for stars bc when I got to the end I got that choked up feeling that sneaks up on you when a book has been building it sneakily, so I give the author a lot of credit for that.
March 21, 2015
Jeffrey Rotter's slim novel, "The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering," bears a revealing title. Rotter clearly loves words and uses them carefully in this latest entry into the dystopian future genre. While Rotter crafts many lovely sentences, the novel wears out its welcome long before the reader reaches Page 206.
I confess that I've never been much of a fan of the disenchanted teen novel - this is the other genre in play here, and I've seen this book compared to "The Catcher in the Rye," which is a book I don't care for. Rotter's hero is Rowan Van Zandt, the cowardly, introspective twin brother to the violent, passionate Faron. The Van Zandt men - including their gigantic Pop - find themselves at the mercy of the law. Pop murdered a man for stealing Pop's rum, and the brothers put a busload of senior citizens in a gator pond on a joyride. The law gives them a choice - rot in prison, or train to be astronauts.
This choice is a little more harrowing given that in the near future, science has gone the way of Creationism and everyone believes that Copernicus was wrong - the sun actually revolves around the earth, and the night sky is actually the Night Glass.
While this is a terrific set-up for a story, Rotter seems more focused on the craft of writing his story than actually telling a good story. The plot jumps around, the story is narrated by Rowan to his young daughter for no apparent reason, and Fanta gets more time on stage than Sylvia, Rowan's love interest and the most intriguing character in the book. Supporting characters pop up for brief passages and fade just as quickly. While I enjoy a good 'Pulp Fiction' storyline that cuts and loops, this novel's cuts and restarts serve only to muddle the tale and destroy any momentum the story may have.
And there's my ultimate frustration with this novel - Rowan is not an interesting character, yet we're stuck with him. The people he meets are intriguing, but for a novel hyped as comic it ultimately just reads as sad. I'm fine with bleak fiction - at times - but this novel seems to want to have it both ways, thereby satisfying none.
I confess that I've never been much of a fan of the disenchanted teen novel - this is the other genre in play here, and I've seen this book compared to "The Catcher in the Rye," which is a book I don't care for. Rotter's hero is Rowan Van Zandt, the cowardly, introspective twin brother to the violent, passionate Faron. The Van Zandt men - including their gigantic Pop - find themselves at the mercy of the law. Pop murdered a man for stealing Pop's rum, and the brothers put a busload of senior citizens in a gator pond on a joyride. The law gives them a choice - rot in prison, or train to be astronauts.
This choice is a little more harrowing given that in the near future, science has gone the way of Creationism and everyone believes that Copernicus was wrong - the sun actually revolves around the earth, and the night sky is actually the Night Glass.
While this is a terrific set-up for a story, Rotter seems more focused on the craft of writing his story than actually telling a good story. The plot jumps around, the story is narrated by Rowan to his young daughter for no apparent reason, and Fanta gets more time on stage than Sylvia, Rowan's love interest and the most intriguing character in the book. Supporting characters pop up for brief passages and fade just as quickly. While I enjoy a good 'Pulp Fiction' storyline that cuts and loops, this novel's cuts and restarts serve only to muddle the tale and destroy any momentum the story may have.
And there's my ultimate frustration with this novel - Rowan is not an interesting character, yet we're stuck with him. The people he meets are intriguing, but for a novel hyped as comic it ultimately just reads as sad. I'm fine with bleak fiction - at times - but this novel seems to want to have it both ways, thereby satisfying none.
July 1, 2015
The Only Words that are Worth Remembering takes place in the future ruins of the US, where astronomy, including the heliocentric theory, has been forgotten. After Rowan Van Zandt and his twin brother hijack a tour bus, the two face a sentence of hard labor alongside their father in Cuba, now a penal colony. Faced with losing her entire family, Rowan’s mother agrees to a crazy proposition; a space shuttle has been excavated in the ruins of Cape Canaveral, and the Van Zandt family, in exchange for their freedom, must agree to test it.
The novel is told by a future Rowan to his daughter, Sylvia;later parts of the story alternate between astronaut training and Rowan’s eventual escape across the Americas. Most of these “road trip” portions consist of brief vignettes of his stops across the continents, and consequently not much detail is revealed regarding these settings and characters. Astronomy continues to be a major theme throughout, with Rowan drawn to various dismantled observatories.
The biggest weakness of the story is the world-building; it’s difficult to get a real sense of this world and how it came to be. People are loyal to a few major corporations here rather than countries, an numerous references are made to the former “Gunts” and corruptions of current place names. However, it’s never made clear exactly who qualified as a “Gunt,” or how far in the future this is.
The level of technology seems weirdly inconsistent as well; jet airplanes are still common, but basic astronomy is forgotten or suppressed. It’s also highly unlikely that an abandoned shuttle could still be expected to work perfectly after years of neglect, no matter how well preserved. Space launches are extremely complicated, and there’s a huge suspension of disbelief needed to accept that a few random people could learn all the ins and outs via video recording.
The Only Words has some interesting ideas, but they need far more development that what Rotter gives here.
A review copy was provided through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
The novel is told by a future Rowan to his daughter, Sylvia;later parts of the story alternate between astronaut training and Rowan’s eventual escape across the Americas. Most of these “road trip” portions consist of brief vignettes of his stops across the continents, and consequently not much detail is revealed regarding these settings and characters. Astronomy continues to be a major theme throughout, with Rowan drawn to various dismantled observatories.
The biggest weakness of the story is the world-building; it’s difficult to get a real sense of this world and how it came to be. People are loyal to a few major corporations here rather than countries, an numerous references are made to the former “Gunts” and corruptions of current place names. However, it’s never made clear exactly who qualified as a “Gunt,” or how far in the future this is.
The level of technology seems weirdly inconsistent as well; jet airplanes are still common, but basic astronomy is forgotten or suppressed. It’s also highly unlikely that an abandoned shuttle could still be expected to work perfectly after years of neglect, no matter how well preserved. Space launches are extremely complicated, and there’s a huge suspension of disbelief needed to accept that a few random people could learn all the ins and outs via video recording.
The Only Words has some interesting ideas, but they need far more development that what Rotter gives here.
A review copy was provided through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
August 8, 2019
It seems a large chunk of fiction published today is of the ruinous world/ speculative nature. I think the world in this book is ruinous and decayed simply because it is over 200 years in the future. No other reasons needed. It seems much of history has been lost, most city names in America have been changed to something similar. Some of the words Rotter uses, I wasn't able to figure out over the course of the book. The story is about two twins, one more mischievous and the other happy to live in his brother's shadow. Some trouble with the law means the only option for their family is to sign up for a trip to space, actually operating a rocket for eight years to land on a moon of Jupiter, whether they want to or not. It's tough to imagine that space travel is still an option, if city names can't be remembered (or maybe they were just changed... it's hard to tell with this book). Granted the rocket has been unearthed from the past, just as a library is unearthed under a lingerie factory in New Jersey. It's a wacky book, brutal at times. And at a sparse 200 pages, I feel like explaining the whys and how the world is this way would have been an option. But maybe that is what made the plot interesting in the first place: the mystery of leaving things unexplained. The book reminded me of 'The Great Glass Sea' by Josh Weil, another speculative novel with a set of brothers and some weird glass. It also reminded me of 'Station Eleven' by Emily St. John Mandel, but this one is grittier and replaces the love of theater and music with a love of astronomy. Another comparison could be 'On Such a Full Sea' by Chang-rae Lee - both not reaching their potential for the same reasons. In a sea of speculative fiction, this is a decent book, but with more world building (or the explanations to it's destruction), it could have been better but there were some charming details throughout.
January 21, 2015
I received this book as an Early Reviewer. It is being released in April of this year.
Rowan and his brother Faron are poor and their father is in jail. Their mother is, well, broken and a drug addict. When Rowan and Faron mess up big time (they hijack a bus of old people and crash it into a tree in the abandoned zoo), the family is given a choice- be part of the crew who launches into space to Jupiter's moon Europa, or be sent to the Cuba Pens (jail). In this future version of the world, space exploration or even acknowledgement of other planets is just fairy tales and nonsense.
The beginning of the book is alright, learning about the family and their dynamics, but then, it gets too weird. Not like sci-fi weird, but trying too hard weird. The plot starts time-hopping, which it didn't do much of before, and things get all serious, which it wasn't really before, and Rowan goes from a scared kid to a grown up in way too little time. I felt like the book was trying to be too many different things- sci-fi, dystopian, quirky, adventure, coming of age- all at the same time and doing none of them well. Like the name thing. Florida becomes Floridy, Cape Canaveral becomes Cape Cannibal. It's supposed to be funny, but it falls flat somehow. Perhaps I'm the wrong audience for this book, but I wanted to enjoy it much more than I did.
Food: honey mustard. It's not sweet enough to be sweet and not vinegary enough for me to respect it as mustard. I don't enjoy it at all.
Rowan and his brother Faron are poor and their father is in jail. Their mother is, well, broken and a drug addict. When Rowan and Faron mess up big time (they hijack a bus of old people and crash it into a tree in the abandoned zoo), the family is given a choice- be part of the crew who launches into space to Jupiter's moon Europa, or be sent to the Cuba Pens (jail). In this future version of the world, space exploration or even acknowledgement of other planets is just fairy tales and nonsense.
The beginning of the book is alright, learning about the family and their dynamics, but then, it gets too weird. Not like sci-fi weird, but trying too hard weird. The plot starts time-hopping, which it didn't do much of before, and things get all serious, which it wasn't really before, and Rowan goes from a scared kid to a grown up in way too little time. I felt like the book was trying to be too many different things- sci-fi, dystopian, quirky, adventure, coming of age- all at the same time and doing none of them well. Like the name thing. Florida becomes Floridy, Cape Canaveral becomes Cape Cannibal. It's supposed to be funny, but it falls flat somehow. Perhaps I'm the wrong audience for this book, but I wanted to enjoy it much more than I did.
Food: honey mustard. It's not sweet enough to be sweet and not vinegary enough for me to respect it as mustard. I don't enjoy it at all.
June 16, 2015
ARC/Fiction: This book just came out so no spoilers here. I will tell you how the book made me feel instead.
I saw the mixed reviews on this novel and after reading it, I understand why. I really thought I was going to love this book by the description. I really liked the cover too. When I picked it from Amazon for an honest review, it was listed under humor. Later it was listed under science fiction/fantasy. It is a dark humor book going on absurd comedy, which I normally like. The book is not science fiction because all the science is real science whether its theory current or a past belief. It is not fantasy because it is set in the future, and well, you never know what may happen.
The author chose not to give too many details about this future world and how it got that way. He chose not to describe settings such as how the countries, economy, or politics landed the United States in such a mess of ignorance. I could not figure out how old the narrator was. Sometimes he and his twin seemed like children and other times much older. I could even forgive that to a point. The problem I had was when I read it, it felt like the cartoons Peter Max’s did for the movie Yellow Submarine. I was literally waiting for the Blue Meanies to come out any second and jump into Ringo’s “hole in me pocket”.
The book is only a little over 200 pages and it took me several sittings to finish it. The book, to me, did not have a smooth flow.
I saw the mixed reviews on this novel and after reading it, I understand why. I really thought I was going to love this book by the description. I really liked the cover too. When I picked it from Amazon for an honest review, it was listed under humor. Later it was listed under science fiction/fantasy. It is a dark humor book going on absurd comedy, which I normally like. The book is not science fiction because all the science is real science whether its theory current or a past belief. It is not fantasy because it is set in the future, and well, you never know what may happen.
The author chose not to give too many details about this future world and how it got that way. He chose not to describe settings such as how the countries, economy, or politics landed the United States in such a mess of ignorance. I could not figure out how old the narrator was. Sometimes he and his twin seemed like children and other times much older. I could even forgive that to a point. The problem I had was when I read it, it felt like the cartoons Peter Max’s did for the movie Yellow Submarine. I was literally waiting for the Blue Meanies to come out any second and jump into Ringo’s “hole in me pocket”.
The book is only a little over 200 pages and it took me several sittings to finish it. The book, to me, did not have a smooth flow.
May 8, 2015
A dsytopian adventure of sorts, this is the story of a family of the grim and rough Floridian future. The US has been ravaged by...who knows! The culture as we now know it has been flipped on its head completely, and nothing is recognizable. Even the language of the future has changed dramatically. Drug use ("fink") is normal and plentiful, although still recognized as harmful. Brothers Rowan and his twin brother Faron are living with their hardworking and apparently drug riddled mother, while their father rots in the Cuban "pens." The twins get into serious trouble. leading to the entire family being conscripted into becoming stone age astronauts.
This was not the book I expected it to be. I think Rotter is a decent writer, but the new language thing can be successful or a disaster, and here it was annoying. While the book was plenty long enough (ha ha), I never really got to know any character enough to feel invested and care. The story is being told to Rowan's daughter, but that conceit runs out of steam, and why do we care so much about his child anyway?
The book flap/description led me to believe this would be a totally different story than it was. I was often bored. This could have been much more than it was if the author had fleshed out some of the characters a little more. This just wasn't any kind of stand out. the seed for a great story was there, but it was somehow lost in the swamps of Florida where a good portion of this story takes place.
This was not the book I expected it to be. I think Rotter is a decent writer, but the new language thing can be successful or a disaster, and here it was annoying. While the book was plenty long enough (ha ha), I never really got to know any character enough to feel invested and care. The story is being told to Rowan's daughter, but that conceit runs out of steam, and why do we care so much about his child anyway?
The book flap/description led me to believe this would be a totally different story than it was. I was often bored. This could have been much more than it was if the author had fleshed out some of the characters a little more. This just wasn't any kind of stand out. the seed for a great story was there, but it was somehow lost in the swamps of Florida where a good portion of this story takes place.
May 23, 2015
I liked this book...it's rather odd and seems like it was written by a new author at the beginning, but it grows on you. I have odd tastes and maybe others won't like it, but I did. It's like a combination sci fi and post apocalyptic literature. The story line is a good one, a little difficult so the author didn't quite pull it off smoothly, but I had sympathy for the characters which shows that the characters were built okay. It was kind of depressing similarly to the book "The Road" with very little hope at the end of humanity. Not quite as hopeless, it taking place after our culture has devolved into uneducated violence and repression, a corporate owned hellhole but there's not much future to be had. Rowan, the main character and a twin seems to dutifully travel through life in his twin brother's shadow, never as brave nor successful as his brother, but he doesn't mind... it seems that everyone in the book is just primarily satisfied to just survive, even though they have a chance to break through the night glass (the people seem to have lost the knowledge of astronomy) Only Faron, the twin brother and Sylvia seem to have the drive to actually try breaking through the night glass and traveling to Europa. But do they?
The lack of hope and loneliness almost drags the story down, like with the book/movie "The Road" but something keeps you reading, and like there is life in the Atacama, there is hope. So, I recommend this book, but caution if you get easily depressed .
March 12, 2015
I started off enjoying this book and I wanted to like it, but I didn't and I can't exactly say why. A dystopian future, a forgotten past rembered, A family fighting to keep all that they have, a chance to see the stars, it all sounds like good stuff. But it's not. Not well done, not working well together, not saved by an ending that just putters out.It's hard for me to feel for a character that starts off as meek, afraid, and dependant on his family to protect and provide for him in every way you can imagin, and then evolves(too quickly) into a drug addict with no idea where this is going. Both of us, he has no idea where this is going, I hve no idea where this is going. More than anything else, I would have to say that I was disapointed.
April 29, 2015
I'd write a review but it's dinner time. And as much as I liked this book.... I like dinner time more.
EDITED TO ADD: It took a little bit to get into this book as I was a bit leery due to the blurb on the back (Not a fan of Clockwork Orange) but I do enjoy reading about broken down lives and broken down societies. The future setting of this book is a sad scary one--intelligence has been shunned/banned and treated like a myth. Some still believe there was truth to myth but of course that is radical thinking and not encouraged. The book picks up the pace to be a real page turner. Ultimately it is a coming of age story. A great summer read.
EDITED TO ADD: It took a little bit to get into this book as I was a bit leery due to the blurb on the back (Not a fan of Clockwork Orange) but I do enjoy reading about broken down lives and broken down societies. The future setting of this book is a sad scary one--intelligence has been shunned/banned and treated like a myth. Some still believe there was truth to myth but of course that is radical thinking and not encouraged. The book picks up the pace to be a real page turner. Ultimately it is a coming of age story. A great summer read.
May 12, 2015
The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering is a book about the weight of family over time. The imagined world of the novel — a crumbled down place where science and government have eroded in the wake of corporate liberties — is less speculation and more an artful distortion, pushing a sweet sad family under the strain of indifference and bad luck. While the novel is at its heart, and in its title, about loneliness and separation, I never felt alone reading it, because I was always accompanied by Rotter’s beautiful sentences and sly humor. I loved every moment of it, and was sad to see it come to an end.
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February 19, 2015I cannot honestly rate this book. I got this in a Goodreads giveaway, but was unaware this story was on the sci-fi, futuristic world type book
It's not a genre I enjoy & although written very well I don't want to give this book a rating of 1 star, just because it's not my type of read!! I'm sure those who enjoy dystopian & sci-fi will enjoy this book very much. As for me, I couldn't even finish it, therefore I'll leave the ratings up to those who DO like this type of story
As I stated earlier , I won this in a Goodreads giveaway. Thanx to the publisher & author!
It's not a genre I enjoy & although written very well I don't want to give this book a rating of 1 star, just because it's not my type of read!! I'm sure those who enjoy dystopian & sci-fi will enjoy this book very much. As for me, I couldn't even finish it, therefore I'll leave the ratings up to those who DO like this type of story
As I stated earlier , I won this in a Goodreads giveaway. Thanx to the publisher & author!
September 22, 2016
I figured out the development process for this book: Start with a setting like the movie Idiocracy. Show that society has faltered but there are some good people left (presumably). Spell a few things wrong to show how society has drifted. Repeat the misspellings so that people realize the misspellings are on purpose. Now introduce the first villain and give him the name of "I Murder."
I wish I was joking.
I gave up early because there have got to be (millions of) better books on this planet. I hope to not remember the words of this book.
I wish I was joking.
I gave up early because there have got to be (millions of) better books on this planet. I hope to not remember the words of this book.
January 16, 2015
Set in a run down and messed up future America. A man and his sons end up in prison and then along with their heroin addicted mother are given the choice to rot there or join a recently revived, secret space program. Space travel and everything we know is considered as fairy tales and myth.
I don't think I've read a dystopian story before but I liked this one. The story didn't go the way I expected it to at all.
I don't think I've read a dystopian story before but I liked this one. The story didn't go the way I expected it to at all.
May 3, 2015
I received this is book as a first reads winner.
This is a delightfully original book and I really enjoyed reading it. The plot took an unexpected path, set in a very creative world. I wanted to call it sci-fi but I would rather call it a dystopian novel . Either way I recommend this book for a departure from the norm of blazing guns and the supernatural. Step into an eerily familiar yet dissident world, and enjoy the ride.
This is a delightfully original book and I really enjoyed reading it. The plot took an unexpected path, set in a very creative world. I wanted to call it sci-fi but I would rather call it a dystopian novel . Either way I recommend this book for a departure from the norm of blazing guns and the supernatural. Step into an eerily familiar yet dissident world, and enjoy the ride.
April 22, 2015
It seems like I'm one of the only people to enjoy this book based on the other reviews. I found it funny at times, although it may be a poor choice of words to label it a comedy. I thought The Only Words that Are Worth Remembering could be beautiful at times like when Rowan says, "Our sun is a littering star like any other, to some distant world it is the porch light at the end of a dark road that makes a traveling man feel less alone." Overall, the story went quickly and was enjoyable.
August 9, 2015
I immediately felt like I was part of the main character's world. The book takes place in a dystopian future where life is hard and knowledge has been lost. Place names have changed and people think differently than we do. But I never felt disoriented. Instead, I felt like I had lived in this world all my life. I understood the way life was and the way people behaved without having it explicitly explained. This book should be a literary sci-fi classic.
February 1, 2015
I won this book for free through a Good Reads contest in exchange for an honest review.
A dark near future tale of one man as he travels around the former USA. It took awhile to get into the world that the author setup.
A dark near future tale of one man as he travels around the former USA. It took awhile to get into the world that the author setup.
December 29, 2014
Dystopian awesomeness!! Uniquely tying the dark comic futures of Kurt Vonnegut to the absurdist, slow cooked true grit wit of Charles Ports, it's an indelible vision of a future in which we might one day live. Very fresh and hilarious read indeed.
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