Fool on the Hill

by Matt Ruff

It is a literary event when a genuinely new fictional voice comes along. When that voice achieves its newness not through a certain formal facility but through the freshness of its vision, there is truly something to celebrate. Matt Ruff was only twenty-two when Fool on the Hill was first published, but with his novel he gave us a story that won over readers of every persuasion. Not your usual first effort, Fool on the Hill is a full-blown epic of life and death, good and evil, magic and love.

Think of the imaginative daring of Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale. The zany popism of Tom Robbins’s Another Roadside Attraction. The gnomish fantasies of J.R. Tolkien. Think of these and you begin to get some idea of one of the most remarkable first novels to come along in years.

In the world of Fool on the Hill dogs and cats can talk, a subculture of sprites lives in the shadows and underfoot (if you’re the sensitive type, or drunk enough, you might see them cavorting across the lawn), and the Bohemians, a group of Harley- and horseback-riding students dedicated to all things unconventional, hold all-night revels for the glory of their cause.

Then there is Stephen Titus George, the novel’s youthful hero, who somehow finds himself the main player in a story that began well over a century ago. George is a mild-mannered flier of kites, a sometimes writer of bestselling fiction, and would-be knight looking for a maiden. George will find his girl and the century-old story will provide the proverbial dragon whose slaying will sanctify their love. But it will not be a sword that fells the foe but the transforming power of the imagination.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Humor, Urban Fantasy, Novels, Book Club, Magical Realism

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

I was born in New York City in 1965. I decided I wanted to be a fiction writer when I was five years old and spent my childhood and adolescence learning how to tell stories. At Cornell University I wrote what would become my first published novel, Fool on the Hill, as my senior thesis in Honors English. My professor Alison Lurie helped me find an agent, and within six months of my college graduation Fool on the Hill had been sold to Atlantic Monthly Press. Through a combination of timely foreign rights sales, the generous support of family and friends, occasional grant money, and a slowly accumulating back list, I’ve managed to make novel-writing my primary occupation ever since.

My third novel, Set This House in Order, marked a critical turning point in my career after it won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, a Washington State Book Award, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and helped me secure a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. My fourth novel, Bad Monkeys, also won multiple awards and is being developed as a film, with Margot Robbie attached to star. My sixth novel, Lovecraft Country, has been produced as an HBO series by Misha Green, Jordan Peele, and J.J. Abrams. It will debut on Sunday, August 16.

In 1998 I married my best friend, the researcher and rare-book expert Lisa Gold. We live in Seattle, Washington.

Reviews

[Mario the lone bookwolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Close to impossible to put and assign this in a genre convention, it´s as if the strange, mostly badly written, European fantastic realism trash is executed well written, competent, and funny by an author flexing his muscles to show how much he can put in one work of average length.

It´s difficult to say something about the story elements without spoilering or subjectively misinterpreting the real hidden intent of the actions, so I´ll drivel about some facts about this novel and the authors works in general meta as usual.

Ruff suffers from the same problems with audiences as TC Boyle, he writes in an irritating and strange way that doesn´t appeal to mainstream audiences and deals with some too heavy and complicated topics to be real, pure entertainment, it´s a bit exhausting too. That it are kind of hybrid crossover new genre chimeras doesn´t help either, but it gets better with the later works of his careers.

It´s Ruff´s first work, sharper and filled with many ideas, not as good as his later books, but still an outstanding debut. One of the main reasons why his mainstream or at least general success isn´t comparable to other, strange, weird, and unconventional writing authors such as the mentioned Boyle and Tom Robbins might be that it´s disturbing in a way difficult to put the finger on. There is something lurking behind the lines that makes reading it an adventure, but also fills the mental room with a presence close to some strange mental magic.

I´m absolutely no esoteric, but I remember reading this novel years ago and still having some kind of creepy shadow popping up. Ruff is mutating and evolving over his career, while this one is n tour de force homage to culture, literature, and mythology, some of his other novels are kind of comedies, social criticism, disturbing thriller crime style exploring the past of a protagonist with amazing twists, each one is different. Hey, I just found another reason why he still isn´t that popular, he doesn´t deliver the same with each book, the reader doesn´t really know what to expect from this artist.

All of this sadly results in the pretty unfair ratings for his works Bad Monkeys and The Mirage, both not as good as his masterpieces, but still astonishing and mindblowing.

Give this author a try, read one of his 4 best rated novels, maybe you like it if you are into strange and unfamiliar narrative styles and can afterward dare to begin one of the other, even more, unconventional ones. It´s totally worth it, because alternative writing styles with hidden treasures anywhere are rare exceptions and should be honored.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

[Mike Vigorous · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few of my thoughts on the author, having read only this, his debut effort:

Matt Ruff is smart. Not Nabokov smart. Not Pynchon smart. Not Dave Foster Wallace neurotic, tortuously smart. In fact, maybe he's not quite so smart after all.

Matt Ruff has read a few books. Tolkien. Who doesn't like Tolkien? Greek and Norse mythology is fun, too. And V.! I love V. Wait, though; besides the pun (Benny Profane and the V-necks, a college band) there's no substance to that reference. Nor most of the others (see: Bradbury). In fact, this all looks more like namedropping than anything else.

Matt Ruff is young. Painfully young. His entire world shares a tedious, undergraduate attitude towards sex. Good thing the story is set on a college campus, where at least most of the world actually is an undergraduate. Or a dog. Turns out dogs are a lot like undergrads.

Matt Ruff has a hard time thinking up names for his characters.

Matt Ruff is pomo. It's too bad that his biggest "don't forget that there is a person writing this story that you're reading" effort comes writing himself in as God. And as the hero. Both. Shit!

Negative enough for you? The writing is pretentious without the stylistic flair, broad knowledge, or deep complexity of story that would allow me to put aside the pretension and really enjoy myself. But my friends love him so! And, for all his juvenile flailing, Ruff spins a decent yarn. There's promise; probably worth trying a more mature effort of his. [Book:Set This House in Order|71847]?

[Petra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note: this is Matt Ruff's debut novel. It's not as polished as his later works. It's a high standing debut novel but still a debut.

I enjoyed this romp of a story with gods, demi-gods, magic, enchantment, heroes, anti-heroes, talking dogs & cats, fighting rates, sprites & fairies. You name it...this book has it somewhere in the pages.
Matt Ruff wrote an interesting fantasy world for Cornell University. It's a fun romp of a coming-of-age/maturation story where the main characters fight their demons, both internal & external, and learn to trust themselves & let others live in their hearts. It's also a story of gods manipulating everyone at their whims. And it's a story of Evil versus Good.

Its all here. It's not perfect but it is interesting and fun. There are a few places where things get a bit drawn out (debut mistake) so a bit of editing would have helped.

All this said, Matt Ruff is a good author and one I enjoy. This is the third of his novels that I've read and I've enjoyed them all, including this one. I don't recommend starting with this one. It's young; it's not as tightly written or polished as his others. I recommend starting with Set This House in Order or Bad Monkeys.

[Larry H · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is easily one of my favorite books of all time. I've read it three or four times and love it more each time. This is the story of a man looking for love, truth and dragons to slay, and as corny as that may sound, it's an amazing book.

[Marina Furmanov · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book started off with so much potential. I actually thought that it may be similar to Jitterbug Perfume, the only book that intertwines stories like ingredients to a wonderful ramen broth. Well fool on the hill had no such seamless elegance. It was bulky.. wrong.. and at times I wish I was reading something more captivating. At no point was I in disbelief of what was happening.. some twists were indeed a bit too fantastical - but I wanted it. I craved Matt's imagination to engulf me with waves of tightly executed, all consuming plot lines.. but why? why did you have to just start so high and then slowly deflate like a helium balloon whose smiley face turns into a sad face on day 4? and since we are on the topic of time.. why whY wHY WHY did this book drag on and on and on and ON?!? 400 pages?

[Jonathan K (Max Outlier) · Rating 2 out of 5]

While many may disagree, this is one of the most confusing plots I've ever seen with so many characters it makes your head spin! Blending fantasy with college fraternities, and countless other elements, each chapter deepens the confusion. I'm not sure what the author had in mind, but he lost my attention ages ago! DNF.. On to something I can relate with!

[Lisa Fagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tone and quirkiness of Matt Ruff is as present as ever in this imaginative and heartwarming tale of love, adventure, and social hierarchy. When I first started this book I was working 14 to 16 hours a day. As such, I could not give it my full attention. Once that job ended, and my relocation to another State was complete, it was the first thing I dove back into. If you're lucky enough to have some solid "read time" in your life, you should fly thru this with a smile on your face and a drink in your hand. It's a wonderful romp of love, loss, fortitude, and fantasy adventure. Enjoy! :)

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rich, fun, inventive, imaginative, borrowing from everyone but owing to no one. Matt Ruff is an amazingly frantic writer who can take a story in fifteen different directions at once, but somehow tie them all back together in the most creative of ways. Fool on the Hill takes place at Cornell University, but a Cornell that is just outside of our own. His vivid details will leave you walking the campus, looking around and trying to see the world that created on top of this one.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was first lent to me by a coworker and fellow Cornell alum who said, "I don't know quite how to describe this book. It's kind of out there, with fairies and talking dogs, but it's set at Cornell and somehow I just know you will like it."

She had me at talking dogs.

It's a treasure trove for fans of literature, mixing quest sagas, fairy tales, Greek mythology, Shakespeare, Tolkien, Richard Adams, not to mention cinematic Westerns, epic battles, zombie-like attacks, and motorcycle mayhem. Place that all in a setting I know and love dearly, in roughly the same era as my own college experience, and I couldn't help but adore this book.

Now I have bought my own copy so that I can share it with my son - the next generation Cornellian in the family - and my husband, who is not a Cornellian but does appreciate weird stories.

And by the way, they are sprites, not fairies.

[Alexander · Rating 2 out of 5]

Guter Unterhaltungsroman. Wie so vieles, das gut ist, wäre der Roman sehr gut geworden, wäre er gekürzt worden.

[Angie Dutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been a while since I've read any "contemporary fantasy" and it's pleasant to disappear into something so whimsical and pleasant, makes a nice change from reading about junkies, or people getting worms shoved in their ears.... it was strange to read something so lacking in snark... and I recommend reading this without any spoilers.

I'm certainly intrigued enough by this to read more of Matt Ruff's books, but how come they aren't available on Kindle? So annoying.

[Karli · Rating 4 out of 5]

I described it to my son, as he asked what my book was about - "There is this old, eternal man who is writing a story which brings the people, animals and sprites of Cornell together to fight an epic battle with words, fairy tales,swords and magic" Cool, he said.

Yep - it's a good one!

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

all time favorite.
i make sure to read every other year again.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a hard time even finding Fool on the Hill the first time I tried to do so, several years ago, spurred by the "Also by Matt Ruff" list in his brilliant later novel Set This House In Order (which you really should read—and I should reread, for that matter). I never saw it in bookstores, and eventually ended up snagging a copy to read through Inter-Library Loan. (ILL's a great service, by the way—you should check it out.)

Since then, though, Matt Ruff's first novel been reissued in trade paperback format (with, I fear, a rather unfortunate cover). I finally picked up my own copy at City Lights in San Francisco, and have since seen it on a couple of other bookstore shelves. Which is all to the good—while this is definitely a first novel, contrived as all hell (sometimes it's hard to figure out just how many different demigods and minor mages are meddling with the unwitting characters), pretentious and awkward in places, with frequent Capitalization of Common Nouns to indicate their Significance, it's also a lot of fun, especially if you've ever been a role-playing college student. (Another book in a somewhat-similar vein: Neal Stephenson's The Big U, which is also a first novel that spent a fair amount of time out of print before relatively recently becoming widely available.)

The college in this case is a real one, though heavily filtered through a pair of Tom Robbins-colored glasses. Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, is the setting for Ruff's complexly intertwined plot, with skeins that involve a pair of far-from-starcrossed lovers, a war between fairies and rats, another war between dorm students and frats, and the unlikely entente between dogs and cats. Its central human character is an improbably successful young author named S.T. George (yep, he does eventually have to face a Dragon, too) who's at Cornell to teach. Of course, he gets kinda sidetracked... not least by Calliope, a young lady who may well be his perfect Muse. And then there are the Bohemians, a crew of horseback- and motorcycle-riding warrior-students, as well as the mysterious denizens of Tolkien House; against them, the spoiled children of privilege who've pledged Rho Alpha Tau, magical forces of chaos like Rasferret the Grub, and the occasional misguided Ithacop.

This is one of those "kitchen-sink" novels, stuffed full to bursting with Big Ideas and tiny grace notes—it actually took me longer to get through the second time, because I kept noticing bits like Ruff's nod to early George R.R. Martin that I rather liked—but somehow Ruff manages to keep the excitement going, keep juggling those chainsaws and Molotov cocktails, right up to the end.

[Margaret Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is it ever a good idea for a magician to explain his tricks? When you find out the mechanics behind an illusion, it leaves you feeling disappointed when you realize there isn’t really any magic involved. Even worse to be shown how a hot dog is made. There are some things man was not meant to know. It should come as no surprise, then, that when Matt Ruff shows us the ugly workings of how a story is made in his novel Fool on the Hill, he gets mixed results.

That I felt that there was some wish-fulfillment going on in this book would be an understatement. S. T. George is a multiply-published, rich and famous author who has a writer-in-residence post on the campus of Cornell University. He slays a dragon by story’s end and gets the girl, and no, I am not revealing any spoilers by saying this. Along the way he gets to have fantastic sex with a goddess. George is too much of a dork to accomplish any of these things by himself, so we get to see the god Apollo manipulate events in his life into the shape of a story.

Fortunately, the side characters – and the prose itself – are good enough to make up for a bland leading man and love interest. (Her name is Aurora and she’s a Daddy’s little princess – three guesses as to what happens to her.) This alternate Cornell is populated by pixies, a possessed mannequin, and Ragnarok, the Black Knight. Ragnarok is an undergraduate haunted by his past in the Klan and interesting enough to be the main character of a book in his own right.

Matt Ruff is a master of the throwaway reference, rivaling Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics and perhaps even besting him for the sheer density of the things. One of the characters (he’s a talking dog) approaches a pair of canine philosophers to ask them about the nature of the divine. They inform him that they are waiting for Dogot, and ask him whether he has seen him. No mention of this incident is ever made again. There is also the case of the best scene of the book, when the villain’s rat army is preparing to take over Cornell’s dining hall. They forgot to account for the hall’s head chef:

“Vermin?! Vermin in my kitchen? DUH-HYUN!”

The chef is Swedish, in case you were wondering.

Ruff is also capable of writing beautiful prose … when he feels like it.

“Are you real?” he asked her, still dizzy from the fall.

“What?” Myoko glided up to him. “You been into something heavy tonight, Li?”

He didn’t answer, but reached out gently to touch her, as if fearing that she too might whirl and vanish. He clasped her hand in his, marveling at the feel of solid flesh and bone; he brushed his fingertips against her cheek.

True, there are so many gonzo occurrences in this book that it can only be called a WTF book, but it’s a good kind of WTF book. The plot is contrived. Ruff acknowledges that it’s contrived, and even goes to lengths to show us how he … I mean Apollo … contrived it. As a writer, I’m quite familiar with the manipulations that Ruff/Apollo undergoes to get characters in the right places so that coincidences can happen. I’m just not sure if it belongs in a finished product. When an author tells us he’s about to employ a deus ex machina, it’s not as much fun anymore.

[Darcy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hands down the laziest written book I have ever read. By the end I realized I could not care less what happened and just wanted to finish it because I was almost done.

I cringed during the opening chapter in which we learn the protagonist is a writer and god is a writer and writers are the only ones with immortality and.. yeah the reek of self-indulgence was very strong. But it picked up over the next few chapters and I got into it.

Then the laziness kicks in and the three plots (sprites, humans, dogs) never meaningfully intertwine or even conclude. The whole thing turns into a snore-a-thon because author Matt Ruff decided to make sure he met his deadline by using a frame narrative of a god who is actually sculpting the whole story. That means anything can happen and it doesn't have to be remotely believable or logical. This is exactly what happens as the flow just completely disappears and each plot comes to a brutally lazy and unsatisfying conclusion.

What was the deal with Luther seeking heaven? Was he really just trying to get to Ithaca college after all?
What is the point of the sprites considering they have zero impact on the "final battle" with Rasfarret?
What is the point of the Bohemians and Tolkien House - also having zero impact on George's storyline?

And having the character of Aurora do nothing more than be sleeping beauty for the climax is insulting and again, extremely lazy.

Needless to say would not read this author again.

[Sabrina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, this is boring.

[Martin Pepe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matt Ruff does something extraordinary in his masterstroke of a first novel, Fool On A Hill. He breaks all literary conventions and none at the same time. I hesitate to use this comparison because the content and tone of the two men's work share no similarities, but Ruff wields total command of previous books and literary conventions the way Quentin Tarantino does with genre cinema. Tarantino doesn't copy and I don't think of his films as homages to the films that inspire him. He elevates, the way only a man, who has total control of his material and what inspired it, can. Ruff does the same with Fool On A Hill. He masterfully intertwines multiple moving love stories, fantasy elements like talking allegorical cats & dogs, and a community of sprites, all of whom have their own riveting tales to tell. Then, for good measure, Ruff adds touches greek tragedy, Tolkien, and the Brothers Grim, with all elements and converging story lines being coordinated by an omnipotent "writer" looking down from above driving the whole tale to it's conclusion, if for no other purpose then the "writer's" own amusement. The story can be harrowing one moment sending chills down your spine, then ethereally beautiful and reassuring the next. Included are an unbelievably varied cast of characters you never want to leave when you are unfortunately confronted with finishing the book's last page. Anyone who reads this book will wish they went to Cornell University where the story takes place. I honestly want to make a pilgrimage to the campus to see the canvas on which this tale is painted because Ruff has caused me to believe that it may be the most magical place on earth. I would like to make the pilgrimage on a specific date, but I leave you to find out when that is. This is story telling at it's finest and I couldn't recommend it more highly. Do yourself a favor and let the world of Fool On A Hill envelope you.

[Dena · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has been on my reading list, no joke -- since circa 1988. I could never find it via library loan or in a used bookstore but I had a gift card and it seems like it's been reissued. Ruff is a post-modern writer, using irony liberally and I previously read The Public Works Trilogy which was much more successful. There are a bunch of narratives here with the only connection really being Cornell University or Ithaca, NY. Supposed to be a modern day fairy tale incorporating different cliques of students, fairies, and talking canines and felines, each with a sort of quest but the cast of characters is vast and it gets really murky -- like the Canterbury Tales meets One Hundred and One Dalmatians -- although all the ends don't really line up well at the end. Also the cheeky references are plentiful, I'm not sure how he didn't get in trouble with either the Rubbermaid Corp. or the Tolkien estate, but seriously he even threw in a Bel Kaufman reference so it's a little too precious even if it's from back in the day (the late 1980's). I'd say if you are not a fan skip and read the later utility/trilogy book. If you like weird narrators that slip in and out with intrusions to plot as a plot within a plot (I think), fairies and talking animals -- then give it a go.

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

You know how Tim Gunn is always telling the people on Project Runway that they need to edit? Yea, Ruff could have used an editor on this one. It's about 100 pages too long, and there are at least one or two too many story lines.

I would like to be able to summarize what the book is about, but I just don't think that I can. Too much going on. There are sprites and animated rats and Bohemians and Frat Boys and writers and talking dogs and cats, and Calliope, and just too much!

I will point out that I read the whole thing, so it couldn't have been that bad. It started out like gang-busters. So creative, really liked the characters, was intrigued to see how the story would unfold. Then it just started to drag. It slowed way down in the middle, a lot of which I will fully admit to skimming.

Fool is definitely well written, and it's creative for sure, I just think it's a bit too long and complicated for itself.

[Gemma Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matt Ruff's first book. Reading it again now, it's not actually five star good, but I read it the summer after my freshman year in college and it has been one of my favorite books ever since. Ruff writes a lot like Tom Robbins, except a little lighter on the political and spiritual messages, and a little heavier on the three-dimensional characters you can actually care about. Oddly, the stories are also a little easier to believe in, despite the fact that he uses a lot of magical realism.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

A modern take on a classic fable, with multiple characters and plots resolving themselves. Sometimes a good story that is well told is all we need. I read a lot of post modern, non linear Literature, so reading Ruff's debut was a bit of a breath of fresh air. No politics. No super fancy prose. No hidden meanings. No research necessary. Just a well written STORY with believable characters in an unbelievable setting. A bunch of fun.

[Ingo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ein Autor mit viel Phantasie und die Geschichte ist durchaus "positiv anders". Aber das Buch hat Längen, es fehlt lange an Spannung, die einen zum Weiterlesen treibt. Und schon wieder der alte Kritikpunkt - das Schreiben selbst ist Thema im Buch. So bleiben nur 3 Strerne...

[Katelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, until half way through it got so ridiculous that I realized I was skimming whole pages and it just wasn't worth it anymore.

[Jenna · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a deep cut, but does anyone remember when Gabe in the Office is talking to the women in the break room, and Nellie asks him, "Do you have to have an Asian fetish to enjoy this?"

This is a book Gabe would love.

I found this book looking for novels my work team could read together--on paper, it had everything we liked: fantasy, magical realism, college (we work at a college), animals, literary references...

In practice, we all hated this book. That's 10 people uniting in hating a book. Not one person even slightly enjoyed it. One of my staff said, "Well, we got bonding out of this. Trauma bonding."

Matt Ruff is insufferable in this. And I am not separating the art from the artist because the main character is a writer who is the coolest guy in the world and gets incredibly hot women for no reason based on his personality. The depiction of women in this book is god-awful--every single woman in this is a sex-object meant to beef up the male characters' blandness. The sex scenes in this are painfully earnest and simultaneously icky. A female character who is a virgin has my least favorite line of dialogue in the English language: "Teach me to seduce you." Girl, WHAT?

And yeah...the way Asian women are talked about...yikes.

None of the MANY MANY MANY plotlines come together in this. Ruff introduces MORE characters even when there's 30 pages left of the 400+ novel! Many of the main plots he just kind of, eh, tosses out. The amount of literary references in this are obscene, with none of them working as a function to the plot. He's just gonna drop a Tolkien reference here, a Norman Mailer reference there...At one point the character who is clearly Matt Ruff just talks about a separate, better Cornell-based novel for the sake of showing he knows it.

The lack of editorial skill is astounding, especially since this is Ruff's thesis--did you ignore everyone in your workshop telling you to cut it out? I bet so.

[Henni · Rating 4 out of 5]

ich würde so 4,5 Sterne geben, weil dieses Buch wirklich sehr unterhaltsam war und auf eine federleichte Art und Weise amerikanisches Story telling und Geschichtsschreibung gespiegelt, parodisiert und gelobt hat. Ein Buch, dass selbst in Geschichten verliebt ist und nicht genug von ihnen bekommen kann. Lustig und unvorhersehbar und ganz und gar absurd. Nur die letzten zwei Seiten kamen mir plötzlich zu flach vor, daher die 4,5. Ein paar der Ideen und Gedanken werde ich in jedem Fall in meinem Kopf behalten und manche Formulierungen hallen noch nach. Einfach und doch nicht einfältig geschrieben. Mit einem Schreibstil, der überall da klar ist, wo man es nicht erwartet und über Magisches schreibt, wie über Kartoffeln schälen.

[Mollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was recommended to me, and because it is peripherally about Cornell, I read it. It took me a very long time. This is not a book to pick up on an afternoon and read all the way through, it needs to be read a little at a time. I'm not even going to try to analyze or review it, I will only say that anyone who likes Tom Robbins will like this book. you'll get lost in it and you'll feel it and I think that's the mark of an unforgettable book.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember that I loved this book when I received it as a gift, when I thought of Ithaca and visiting my friend who went to Cornell. I remember that it was fun. Not a review really. Possible a bookmark of time and friendship. Another friend wrote a song for me with the same title when he saw the book.

[Aki · Rating 5 out of 5]

More fun and less serious than Tom Robbins, but whimsical and strange in all the best ways.

[Leann · Rating 3 out of 5]

It sadly took me too long to really get into the story. But when I did, I started to really enjoy it! This book is something else, for sure