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Wednesday, October 26, 2005
You Will Behave
Hey, gang. Just gonna put a li'l bug in your ear about another book available for pre-order. You Will Behave by Matt Getty will start shipping November 11. I've read it and will review it a little more fully when I get a chance. For now, I'll just drop a brief bit of my own experience with the book on ya:

I have a short attention span. Really short. Especially when it comes to reading stuff on a monitor. So I thought I'd have to print out the PDF proof I was sent in order to read the damned thing. But once I started reading, I didn't stop until I was done. Now, this isn't a 400-page novel, so that probably doesn't sound like a big deal. But for me, reading a novella online in one sitting is akin to reading the aforementioned 400-pages of paper in one sitting. It's absolutely absorbing. And better still, some people are just going to hate it. Better still? Why, yes. Because anything written that can evoke an emotion as strong as hatred is a-okay in my book. (I did not hate it, by the way.)

I'll hammer out a more complete review soonish (I hope). Here's the promotional blurb for Matt's very fine book:

You Will Behave begins with a mother reprimanding her son for raping his sister's Barbie Doll with Darth Vader's light-saber. She tells him that he will apologize, that he will bury the doll, that Darth will look Ken in the eye and confess his crime.

Only she doesn't stop there.

In this same tone, she proceeds to tell her son his entire life story. The result is a dark and uproarious tale of love, violence, and what little difference there is between the two. Told entirely in the second person future, You Will Behave is at once a heart-felt coming of age story and a send up of the very idea of coming of age at all.

Sounds kinda cutesy. But it's not. Really. More later.
posted by Dave Clapper at 4:44 PM  0 comments

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