Juvenile Fiction
Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers
2009
ebook
480
Overdrive
2010 Michael L Printz Award Winner
In an attempt to find a cure after being diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob (aka mad cow) disease, Cameron Smith, a disaffected sixteen-year-old boy, sets off on a road trip with a death-obsessed video gaming dwarf he meets in the hospital.
“Going Bovine” is a strange trip of a book. I read this a few years ago, probably close to when it was first published. I enjoyed a lot of it, but frankly, I felt like there was too much of it for me. It’s based on “Don Quixote” and like it’s source material, the adventures ramble on. And on.
I’m also thinking that the emotional impact of the story was lessened by the fact that it was a reread. This might have also been why it felt so long: I knew what was coming, and kept checking the progress meter (I read an ebook this time), wondering if I was done yet.
I can see why it won many awards, and the message about what it means to actually live, and not just exist, is something more of us need to think about. Even though I had a bit of a struggle getting through it, I think a first time reader would get more out of it, and I would definitely recommend it to teenage readers.
