Summary:
Daniel is a guy who used to be a computer programmer for Hewlett-Packard. Now he's a hermit with so many mental hang-ups, he can't even count them, let alone the rest of us. He spends most days exactly the same, spying on an unknowing real estate agent through his open window, doing nonsensical puzzles and mathematical calculations in his head just because he can, and avoiding curbs at all costs because there could be a scary abyss lurking at the bottom of that three-inch step. His whole world is centered around dealing with his imagined issues, and he hardly ever ventures past them to converse with the outside world.
Thoughts:
Yes, it's that Steve Martin. To be honest, it's weird. It took me a long time to get through it, including going through a ridiculous number of books between when I started it and when I finished it. I got my hands on it initially through PaperbackSwap.com (which is an awesome resource for books, particularly because it doesn't cost all that much!) in mid-February, started it maybe in March. I just took a look, and the next book I had my hands on from PBS Dead as a Doornail, which I finished and posted about in late March. There are twenty two books between that book and this one now. As I type this post up (in mid-June), it took easily three months to start, and then subsequently get myself back to, this book. That doesn't bode well as a gauge of how much I liked it. But, as usual, I digress.
The book is droll. It doesn't have specific chapter markers, nor easily noted stoppage points. A scene could go on for a paragraph before moving on to the next, or it could take five pages, and you could never tell which it would be until you got to the end of it. I was hoping that the author's comedic background would lend itself to creating a fun, light-hearted book that I would love and adore almost as much as I do him. But alas, that was absolutely not the case. I read sixty pages, over the course of about a month, and couldn't stand it anymore. I put it down for nearly two months before picking it up again. In the end, it takes until page 88 of a 163 page book for anything of substance to happen. Until then, the reader is introduced to more and more of the main character's crazy until you want to kill him and put him, and yourself, out of your shared misery. From page 88, it turns out to be almost interesting, but by that point, I was so fed up with the crazy that I just wanted to power through to the end to get the whole mess over with.
I don't recommend this book, by any means, unless you're severely mentally challenged and think this will be a help to you. Seriously, don't bother. Steve Martin's comedic prowess makes no appearance in this novella. None.
Book 34 of 50
Pages: 163
Genre: General fiction
Grade: D+
Would I Recommend?: Nope. Not even because it's Steve Martin.
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