Hollow

by Owen Egerton

When Oliver Bonds, a revered religious studies professor at the University of Texas, loses his toddler son and undergoes intense legal scrutiny over his involvement, grief engulfs him completely. His life is upended; Oliver loses his wife, home, and faith. Three years after his son's death, Oliver lives in a shack without electricity and frequents the soup kitchen where he used to volunteer. It's only when he's befriended by Lyle, a con artist with a passion for theories of Hollow Earth, that Oliver begins to reengage with the world. Oliver too becomes convinced that the inside of the planet might contain a different realm. Desperate to find a place where he can escape his past, Oliver chases after the most unlikely of miracles. With unforgettable characters, wild imagery, and dark humor, Hollow explores the depths of doubt and hope, stretching past grief and into the space where we truly begin to heal.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Contemporary, Book Club, Literary Fiction, Adult Fiction

240 pages, Hardcover

Published July 11, 2017

About the author

Owen Egerton is the author of the novel The Book of Harold, the Illegitimate Son of God as well as the novel Marshall Hollenzer is Driving and the short story collection How Best to Avoid Dying. He is also an accomplished screenplay writer and commentator for NPR affiliated stations. He is also the co-creator of the award winning comedy hit The Sinus Show which performed for six years at the Alamo Drafthouse Theater, and for several years Egerton was the artistic director of Austin’s National Comedy Theatre. His writing has been featured in Puerto del Sol, Killing the Buddha, Tiferet, Word Riot, and several other magazines and literary journals. Egerton earned a MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University in 2005. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and two children.

Reviews

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best novels I've read about grief. Such a powerful and underrated little book. The writing is emotional and profound. My major complaint was the ending. The last 50 pages or so were extremely weird and disjointed. You can really feel tone of the narrative change dramatically. I'm not sure what the author was thinking, but I found it unnecessary and bizarre. It took away from the overall impact of the story. I still highly recommend "Hollow" though. I shed many tears, and I'm still thinking about it weeks after I finished it. Heavy stuff but oh so worth it. Enjoy!

[Brad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hollow is a haunting, hypnotic meditation on the struggle to recover from staggering loss. Author Owen Egerton drew me in to his story and kept me entranced the whole way through. When a toddler suddenly dies, it tears a family apart, and leaves husband Oliver adrift in his mourning. We find Oliver, a former college professor, living alone in a shed. When his pathological liar friend Lyle convinces him that the world is hollow and another civilization lives within, their desire to see this other world creates the only hope within Oliver's life. While the plot is interesting and perhaps seemingly preposterous, what I love most about this book is following Oliver through the novel as he goes deeper and deeper into his hopelessness. Ultimately, we see perhaps a small glimmer of hope for Oliver at the book's roller coaster ride conclusion. Don't be put off by the bleakness of this book. It's a brilliant examination of struggling to find some way out of the darkness and back into the light. Highly recommended!

[Knobby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes a book kinda reaches out and gets a soft hold on you. Doesn't grip you or anything, just worms it way into your head and you realize that it feels real. That was the surprise of Egerton's Hollow, which follows Oliver, a late-30s-ex-professor who has lost everything and now clings to the idea that the earth is hollow. The story takes place in Austin, which is also where the author Owen Egerton lives, and the city is an additional character, sometimes distractingly so, because I paid attention to all of the familiar landmarks and was mapping Oliver's travels as he traversed around town.

While the story is... odd... I loved the writing. I am a fan of Egerton's comedy — he is one of the hosts of the Austin-centric Master Pancake Theater, which mocks movies (like Mystery Science Theater 3000 does) — so I'm aware of his humor, but this side of him is thoughtful, with beautiful observations in his metaphors. I want to take a highlighter to the book and mark all my favorite pieces, but then the book would be half-yellow.

Anyway, if you're interested in a quiet, introspective piece of work that has a few thrilling moments, definitely pick this up.

[Jessmc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot imagine the grief a person would go through after losing a child. I imagine that Oliver's downward spiral is a pretty good estimation of real life. Especialy as he was also accused of killing the boy.

I could see how a person would become obsessed with something as bizarre as a Hollow Earth theory. With nothing really to live for, why not look for somethimg that could give you the answers you so desperately want.

I found myself wanting to know more about some of the other characters in this story, especially Lyle - How did ge get to be the way he is? What kind of life did he lead before he met Oliver? What drew him to believe in the Hollow Earth?

And Martin. Poor Martin. A man being killed slowly by shitty cancer. I completely understand his desire to die on his own terms, not in a hospital but heading west in his beloved car.

Oliver's question of why (not how, who cares about how) is one I can completely understand and empathize with. If I get to meet God, I might ask the same question. Why?

I really enjoyed following Oliver through his journey. I ended the book hoping that he would find peace on his drive.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

LITERARY FICTION
Owen Egerton
Hollow: A Novel
Soft Skull Press
Hardcover, 978-1-6190-2940-8, (also available as an e-book), 240 pgs., $26.00
July 11, 2017

Oliver Bonds has come undone, losing everything after his arrest in the matter of the death of his toddler son, Miles. His wife has divorced him; he lives in a shack (currently padlocked from the outside) behind Jenny’s Beauty Salon in south Austin; the university (hasn’t officially, but has) suspended him from his position as a History of Religion professor; formerly a volunteer at the Agape soup kitchen, now he goes to eat breakfast, pick up a bus pass, and check his email—he gets missives from God; he no longer believes in the fairness and goodwill of the universe, which unmoors him. Oliver is vulnerable when he meets Lyle, conspiracy theorist, devotee of crackpot science, and member of the Hollow Earth Society of Central Texas. “The concept of the Hollow Earth was something better than factual; it was applicable. I was myself a hollow shell,” Oliver explains, “with nothing but a question at my core.”

Hollow: A Novel is the latest from Austin novelist and screenwriter Owen Egerton. Hollow grabs you, startlingly, with the poetry of its first sentence (“The moment [Miles was] born, the room smelled of warm soil and blood”), and follows up with sardonic wit (“This has remained the key to our friendship. [Lyle] is full of opinions and I don’t value his opinions”) and an existential quest (“I was blank and newly uncertain of the nature of everything”). Hollow is off-beat, poignant, ultimately beguiling literary fiction.

Oliver’s first-person account of his devolution is complex and disturbing, regularly administering a shot to the gut. Guilt and grief have rendered him unstable, living a “life unsustainable.” The pace is smooth, minimally interrupted by flashbacks. There’s little high-impact action in Hollow, but where it occurs it is swift and unexpected.

Egerton’s descriptions are frequently crisp: Oliver worried that his paycheck “stretched over our expenses like a queen sheet on a king-sized bed”; Sixth Street in daylight is “gaudy as a Christmas tree come January.” Sometimes they’re lyrical: the landlord’s Irish accent is “barely bruised by twenty years in Texas”; when a woman frowns, “one thin line stretched across her young forehead like a fault line, narrow and unalarming, but promising some distant future quake.” Occasionally they’re beautiful: When his wife was in labor in the shower, “She rested her arms on my shoulders and we swayed, like teenagers slow dancing.”

Hollow uses the Everyman to address grand concepts and big questions, exploring happiness, privilege, suffering, and the utopian chimera. Egerton challenges the just-world hypothesis, which holds that life is fair: good things happen for good people; bad people are punished. He uses an academic discussion between Oliver and a student to explore the biblical tale of Job. Characters at the soup kitchen and a friend in hospice care offer further opportunities to confront the question: What is your sin? Oliver needs to know what he’s done to deserve his fate.

Charmingly designed, quoting portions of text and reproducing whimsical maps from nineteenth-century adventure novels, Hollow ends elegantly, even hopefully, with a touch of Thelma and Louise. The biggest question of Hollow is: Does Oliver want to live?

Originally published in Lone Star Literary Life.

[WndyJW · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had not heard of Owen Egerton before I heard NPR list Hollow as one the best books of 2107.
Hollow is a modern retelling of the Biblical story of Job, a Godly man God sorely tested to prove Job's faithfulness to Satan.
Our "Job" is Oliver Bonds, a faithful husband, father, and professor of Comparative Religion who volunteers at soup kitchens and hospice. Oliver prided himself on his ability to hold both faith and reason in his mind simultaneously. He believed the world was ordered and a good man could expect a good life. Everything in his life supported his belief, until the night his toddler son died and he was arrested for causing the death.
We meet Oliver three years later when he is homeless and eating in that soup kitchen.
This rumination on love and loss, faith and disbelief, good and evil introduces us to a cast of colorful, down on their luck characters who each play a role in forcing Oliver to choose life or not life, one of whom takes Oliver under his wing and presses Oliver to join him on an expedition to the center of our hollow earth where all the 'whys' will be answered.
I had the sense that Egerton was working through his own theodicy in this short book. Oliver ponders and questions what it all means, why good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. How can God be all-loving and all-powerful? These formerly theoretical questions Oliver dealt with as a professor, chuckling at the thought that anyone expected answers to are now very real and they haunt him.
As in life, there are no answers in this book, but reading it will make one think.
I highly recommend it, especially to all the philosophy majors who are now sitting in front of a computer, longing for long discussions about the mysteries of life.

[Andy Brzezicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd wanted to read this book for literally years. I'd never once managed to find it anywhere, to the point I was starting to believe it didn't exist. Until somewhat serendipitously I spotted it as I strolled past a book store on Brick Lane.
Right off the bat, it was worth the wait. I don't think you'll find a more accurate depiction of grief than Oliver's downhill spiral here. I've (thankfully) never had to deal with severe grief so I can't say first-hand, but I felt this is probably how I'd react to such trauma. Turning to something weird and unexplainable to keep me going and tie me to reality, as Oliver does with the hollow Earth theory. The writing is hypnotic, at times I'd noticed I was holding my breath until the end of a paragraph, and engaging but it never reads as over the top or preachy. I think the writing's real achievement is as you follow Oliver's descent into hopelessness, the book never feels depressing. On the contrary, wrapping the elements of grief around a quirky idea and very colourful supporting characters (sidenote: everyone in this book is weirdly horny for absolutely no reason but I dug it) makes it darkly funny. There's a very laissez-faire attitude amongst every side character which makes for a nice anthesis to Oliver's outlook, I just wish we knew more about them. Especially Lyle.
I will say, the last fifth of the book went in a direction that I didn't want it to go in and felt out of place, though not enough to detract from my overall feeling to the story.

[Scott Semegran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hollow is one of those rare novels that has two very different narrative threads that weave together into a very satisfying whole. Each of these threads alone would not have been as satisfying, one being too depressing and the other being too quirky. But together, they balance each other and create a fully realized portrait of the main character, Oliver, and the world that seems to both mock and inspire him.

At one point, Oliver has a very well to-do life as a college professor, husband, and father to a newborn son. But in one night, a bad choice and an unfortunate life event completely destroys Oliver’s world. We learn all of this in Oliver’s backstory as he grapples with understanding how God, or life, deals him very, very bad hands. In the present, we find Oliver living in a shack on the southside of Austin, Texas, almost destitute. He befriends Lyle in a book shop, who quickly introduces him to the Hollow Earth Society of Central Texas and their idea that the Earth is hollow and something or someone lives down there. Lyle enters a contest to join an expedition to the North Pole with a hollow earth expert to find an entrance to the inner world. And with this, he and Oliver begin their something-like buddy trip to join this expedition to the North Pole, if they can conjure up the $20,000 needed to be a part of it.

These are the two narrative threads that Owen Egerton weaves with aplomb. Alone, Oliver’s backstory would be too heartwrenching. And his friendship with Lyle is derivative of many well-known buddy stories in literature and movies. But together, these two threads weave a very satisfying literary tale of a man compelled to find meaning in a world that is both unrelenting with its maliciousness, but also beautiful with its acts of love. There is one violent turn late in the story that was off-putting and distracting from the story as a whole. Once I finished the novel, I realized that this violent turn was also unnecessary to the overall plot and without it, the story could have concluded in the same fashion. With this aside, the novel has a very satisfying ending, one in which Oliver’s friendship with his terminally ill friend, Martin, shows that acts of kindness and generosity are what make life worth living, even when the end is imminent.

I highly recommend this novel for lovers of literary fiction. 4 and a half out of five stars.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jeez, this book got heavy quickly. I'm not even sure how to describe this. A book about loss, generally. A loss of faith, direction, motivation, and family. But it's so much more than that! All I can say is that I valued the read and would definitely suggest it to others.

[Dlmrose · Rating 3 out of 5]

3+

[Spencer Mirabal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven’t been captivated by a novel in a long time. Like “Somewhere between years and eons” long time. There is so much yummy, poetic language through Owen Egerton’s “Hollow” that sweeps you away, but also somehow someway keeps you grounded in a story of deep sorrow and primal loneliness. I was surprised countless times by the plot’s winding-ness, but never in a way that felt unearned. Things flowed, and I wanted to follow its bizarre, painful, intense curves. Strangely enough, after having lived in Austin for 7 years, Oliver’s spiral through its hidden muck felt relatable and authentic. It transported me to a wayward time walking downtown barefoot at 2 AM, the night starting years before the $1 watermelon vodka shots went down the hatch, wondering how I got to this exact point this exact way. So goes the same for everyone in “Hollow”, their curiosity, their wanting, and wondering their where it all went wonky.

[Jeni Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Semi-interesting, but the story doesn't really feel complete. Picked this up at the library before jury duty selection.

[Emily Duchon · Rating 4 out of 5]

wow. holey-moley.

pain in my heart after this one.

oliver bonds loses his son miles tragically, and cannot seem to get his life together afterwards. he loses his great job at the university, his pretty wife who wears white dresses, friends, and his home. he's on the verge of homelessness, living in a shack, when this story opens. he's eating his meals at a local homeless shelter where it's not uncommon he's recognized as professor so and so--that brilliant guy from the university. poor dude. at least his case worker is sexy, right? drum roll. .

oliver has taken up with this wise-cracking, devilish liar named lyle and together they become convinced the earth is hollow and want to explore that notion. i mean, olive bonds really has nothing to lose anyway, right? why not get wrapped up in some insane conspiracy theory?

the story takes off from there but there's so much here, really. oliver's side hobby of being a hospice volunteer forms the crux of a second plot and they interweave towards the end creating a headache of drama and heartache i didn't see coming. there's russian hookers, and cancer deathx, and tattooed bad guys alongside bigger, broader issues like faith, and charity, and friendship. and loss. oh, the loss. you feel feel....dare i say...hollow...at times with this one.

it's stark and unpredictable and so perfect in many ways. it's heartbreaking but hopeful and innocent, this one is. and unexpectedly funny. there's a bit of one flew over the cuckoo's nest here; at least enough to keep it from drowning in it's own tears.

i think you'll like it. it's a fast, well-written read.

the cover is catchy too, eh?

[Ilyssa Wesche · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could not stop reading this. Some of the characters were so compelling, I wanted to know more - about Lyle, about Ashley, even about Oliver's landlord. I so much liked the literal parts of this, even the hollow earth stuff, but the allegory didn't quite do it for me. Mostly because I have a cold literal heart. Other than that, though, I dug it.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is impossible to unstack the layers on which this story speaks. Anything I say seems vague and cliched. So I'll simply say that this story wrecked me in the way that the best stories usually do. Exploring pain and loss and grief in ways that are deliberately otherworldly and yet common and recognizable. One of the best things I have read this year.

[Teresa Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid 3 star. This book, about a man who lost his son and consequently his life, did pretty much nothing for me. Perhaps I've read too many "big reveal" books lately to appreciate the understatedness of this book, maybe that's it. Or maybe it just wasn't that great.

[Tracy Middlebrook · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh! Recommended by my local bookstore, I was really excited to read this, but it did not work out for me. The explorations of grief were very powerful (and the loss of a child is something that, obviously, would turn your entire world upside down). And watching our main character struggle and sink and become hollow, and then start to find meaning in the Hollow-Earth Conspiracy group…just fascinating. A really unique yet quite on-the-nose metaphor. Fun historical data about this conspiracy throughout the years, as well as some truly human moments among the unhoused population in Austin. So all of that is great, and I appreciated the story-telling framework, jumping between the present and giving glimpses of the past, as you wait for details on the initiating tragedy to unfold. But dang it, the person he reveals in his past was so thoroughly unlikable and irritating, it sort of ruined it for me. If this wasn’t so short, I wouldn’t have finished it. And I only did because the present day Hollow Earth stuff and the world at the shelter was very engaging. This privileged sanctimonious white dude college professor, complaining about how HARD his life was, about what a STRUGGLE it was because his wife wasn’t as sexually available anymore because she’d recently had a baby. And then watching his struggles when a sexy young co-ed is flirting with him. “Oh, the humanity! What a rich interior life and nobody has suffered more.” Just, barf. Even though his present day self tries to have some learned self awareness and can at least point out how sanctimonious he used to be about his Religious Studies courses, etc…it isn’t enough to make me care of empathize. Because he really doesn’t seem to have learned much or have self awareness to the real harm and hurt his oblivious and selfish behavior caused. Just so Over It! And then watching the past events after the death, and his continued selfish obliviousness and shockingly clueless and stupid choices. Again, lame. Clearly he’d never truly faced a hardship before. Him not knowing how to deal with the death of a child is understandable and relatable (who could possibly be prepared?!?). But his inability to talk honestly with his wife or the lawyer or how any of those events unfold…and then his shock at it all?!? Just, I disliked him so much, and his continued belief that his life had been SO HARD because he wasn’t getting laid regularly by his recently pregnant wife and his struggles to not have an affair with a 20 year old student. Maybe if I’d read this 20 years ago, I’d have been impressed and moved. But at this point, I am over this obliviously selfish behavior and so just didn’t care about his current life or struggles. He really hasn’t reckoned with the harm he’s caused (and really doesn’t make any effort to meaningfully apologize to his wife or the co-ed or anyone else). Like, it’s nice that he started doing some volunteer work, but come on!

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of the biblical Job, a good man whom God tested to the utmost, has always mystified me. It’s hard to reconcile a loving God with an omnipotent One who made Job suffer so unbearably. It’s also impossible for me to understand Job’s continued faith in Him during his trials. Dr Oliver Bonds is the Job of this story. He was a professor of Comparative Religion, a loving husband and father, and a volunteer in his community. He lost everything when his toddler died of apparent SIDS. Arrested for negligent homicide, although a Grand Jury ultimately did not find grounds to prosecute, he did feel guilt for not having been there when Miles died. His grief was paralyzing, his marriage did not survive, he could no longer function academically, and he lost his faith that this is basically a decent world, where good deeds don’t go unrewarded. His altruism didn’t entirely evaporate, though; throughout the book we see ample evidence of his continuing humanity.

The book’s title refers to a fringe belief that the Earth is hollow, with a parallel civilization below the earth’s crust. Ollie met a grifter, Lyle, who believed in this theory, and he (Ollie) began to buy into it himself, primarily because a mirror that could answer all your questions could apparently be found in this other world. Ollie wanted very badly to know why (not how) Miles died. It seemed he couldn’t move forward to rebuild a life until he understood why his previous life had imploded. He wanted to believe in an alternative world that would not have people dying inexorably and badly from cancer and that women would not have to prostitute themselves in order to support a family, a world where kindness still counted for something.

Now this may sound like quite the downer of a story. It certainly can be seen that way. But the words that come my mind are heartbreaking and - surprisingly - witty. The dry humor gave me hope that Ollie would not be lost forever. As the story ends we are still uncertain about Ollie’s fate. But I remain hopeful.

[Trevor Trujillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not the Halloween read that I expected; but a beautiful, emotionally challenging, haunting, and darkly human tale of grief, coping, relationships, dying, and everything in between. It's a lot of pathos for such a short book, and there is no wasted time here. This was an emotional rollercoaster, especially for somebody like me whose emotional buttons are large, brightly colored, and easily hit.
I've had the pleasure of tipping a few beers with the author, Owen Egerton, in the past. I watched him live riff movies with Austin's Master Pancake Theater, I've been in the audience when Owen showed his films at festival, and Owen was the one who dubbed me "the worlds largest hipster" in front of an audience of hundreds at the Fantastic Debates event of a Fantastic Fest, many years ago. He's a very sweet, funny, jovial guy. It's hard to square the man with the dark stories he tells.
I have to confess, Owen's novel sat on my to-read pile for a long time. I had previously inhaled his collection of short stories, and enjoyed his forays into some wonderful and creepy films. But this is just a case where the right book found me at the right time. If I had read this five years ago, before fatherhood, the emotional impact would not have hit me so acutely.
For the sake of listener discretion- a person's relationship with dying people, the loss of a child, and the grief of parents are heavy themes throughout, so this may not be one for more sensitive readers. But man...it hit me right where I lived. There's also a scene of sexual assault, and the violence is sparing but it is brutal and real feeling. Owen paints a vivid picture.
As unflinching as the story is, the book also serves as a very real snapshot of a mid-aughts Austin, when I lived there. It's a whirlwind tour of everything from the touristy pedicab laden 6th Street, to the Austin State Hospital in the northern end of the city, to the Texas Hill Country. People familiar with the town will see our characters eating at the same Whataburgers and walking the same streets that they know (knew).

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even though the synopsis of the book suggests that the story is about a grieving father's journey to find the hollow earth, you know that Hollow by Owen Egerton is not that kind of book. It is not a science fiction or fantasy book whereby the characters do indeed find the entrance to a secret civilisation hidden beneath the earth's crust. It is about a man dealing with the death of his son. Knowing that, going into this, did help me enjoy the book as a piece of literature.

Until the book took a strange turn in the last 15% or so. It is a turn that I cannot get on board with, which explains the rating. It feels jarring from the rest of the book, in my opinion, and doesn't quite work on an allegory/metaphorical level. At least I didn't spend too much time on this.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

(One might consider this review contains spoilers, but I don't think so, really...) For most of this book, I kept thinking / waiting for the change in tone, for some literary corner around which there would be a new scene that would bring some measure of hope or relief. But no. There is no letup. This is Job faced with the universe that does not care, that is silent in the face of human suffering. And yet, even when Ollie is closest to despair, he can initiate quite unexpected redemption and beauty. Really, this is quite a book. A good week or more since I've finished it, and I'm already involved in other writings, but themes and scenes and words keep appearing.

[Julie Trapp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oliver Bonds has lost his toddler son, Miles and was thought responsible by the police. His wife has divorced him, the university has taken away his professorship in the religious studies department and he lives in a shack behind Jenny’s Beauty Salon in south Austin. He used to volunteer at the Agape soup kitchen, now he goes therte to eat breakfast, pick up a bus pass, and check his emai. At the center, he meets Lyle, a con artist, with a passion for theories of Hollow Earth. Oliver too becomes convinced that the inside of the planet might contain a different realm. I get it that he was distraught over losing his son (been there), but Hollow was just too much for me - too much like SF.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting take on the what's-inside-Earth concept. In theory, a hollowness exists deep inside Middle Earth that warrants exploration. What lies within? A group plans to find out. Meanwhile, the main character's personal inner turmoil is slowly revealed. The effects of a tragedy are far reaching. Once successful, he loses everything and becomes homeless, without family or support - a hollow shell of his former self. The author covers issues from a street perspective. In the end, the character knows what matters, what lies were told, what lies ahead, and what is within himself.

[Gwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A haunting book. I debated on giving it 4 or 5 stars. It was an easy read (read it in one sitting). The story is about a man who loses his son to death and the happenings afterward. The ending is good, though there was really no conclusion that marked "finish" to the story.

I received this book free from Goodreads First Reads.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

You’d think the It’s a Boy! balloons and cards would get me. You’d think maybe I’d break down. But it’s never when I expect it. I don’t weep when “Cat’s in the Cradle” plays on the radio or a public service billboard shows a father with his son on his lap. My guard is up and I can clearly see the threat. It’s the surprises that get me. Fingernail clippings and the smell of applesauce.

[Paltia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book centers on a man in turmoil after the death of his son. His life turns upside down and even sideways as he surrounds himself, or is surrounded by a cast of characters who ultimately endeared themselves to me. The chain of events that ensue reach a point of absurdity. Yet the author redeems himself in the last part of the book as he finds his way through to the other side of loss.

[Sam Baldazo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a remarkable read and changed the way I look at the world around me. The ability it has to examine perspective and motives was enjoyable and it’s ability to put me into the world of the characters was surprising. It is specifically fun for those who have spent time in Austin, Texas, as that’s the setting.

[Evelyn Bodenschatz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book explores grief in a way that I’ve never read before and I appreciate it very much for that. For anyone that has experienced grief, it is a refreshing and honest perspective. Not for the light hearted, though, regardless of how “silly” the premise seems. There’s a lot of dark themes in this book, which, while difficult to read, only add value.

[Jennifer Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know we all grieve and take burdens in our own way, deeply moving emotional view. Ending was very abrupt, suddenly reading acknowledgments thinking everything was going to be wrapped up before I put this book away.

[Kathleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Certainly this book is about a grieving father who got a raw deal, and spiraled down. Maybe this even was the story of Job, as some have compared.
At a certain point, Ollie takes a strange turn, and the book careens off a cliff. Not recommended.