Going Bovine

Going Bovine by Libba Bray is a road trip novel with a twist.

Cameron Smith is a teen who is sliding through high school trying not to be noticed. He is totally unpopular and has only a few friends - opposed to his twin sister who hangs with the most popular kids.

But soon, Cameron will be a bit more interesting. At first he is not sure what is going on - he is having hallucinations and his muscles are not always doing what he tells them to. Once his parents notice that there is something wrong and he is not just being a teen, they take him to the doctor.

Cameron is diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob, or Mad Cow, disease. Knowing he has only a short time to live, he takes the advice of a angel (who may be a figment of his imagination) and goes on a quest to find the one man who may be able to cure him.

On his journey, accompanied by a classmate, he will encounter a cult, a famous jazz musician, quantum physicists, spring break in Florida, and a Viking god trapped in the body of a yard gnome.

Libba Bray is obviously mad herself, and her personality comes through in this novel which is the story of a young man learning how to really live for the first time in his life. It is both laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly heart wrenching.

Bray, Libba. (2009). Going Bovine. New York: Delacorte Press.