The Instructions/ Adam Levin

The Instructions by Adam Levin. Youth in revolt, messianic myths, adventure 1030 pages. (I know, right?)

Well, the hardest part of this review is already done, which is the part where i'm supposed to list a few categories the book I read fits into in italics. Even though I got a few down, I don't think anything truly applies because Adam Levin's "The Instructions" is truly in a league of its own.

This massive piece of literature, which looks like a cinderblock is the fictional "scripture" of Gurion Ben-Judah Maccabee, 10 year old gifted scholar, revolutionary, and possible potential messiah. Gurion is a brilliant Jewish youth who has been expelled from three schools, diagnosed with every behavioral disorder in the book and placed in the CAGE program of his newest school Aptakisic Junior High, a BD program where the students are literally condemned to silently sit in a cage all day while ruled by their abusive dictator of a monitor Botha (Botha is a true villain complete with a claw-hand and a creepy Australian accent). Gurion's life completely changes when, after a chance meeting in the office, he falls in love with Eliza June Watermark, the girl of his dreams. While this "first love" may not seem like much to us normal people, for Gurion, this event sets off a chain reaction that leads to a series of misadventures during the next four days leading up to a full-scale revolt complete with armed takeovers, murder, betrayal, and maybe even a miracle.

One of the most exciting things about the world Levin creates for us is the mythology surrounding Gurion. Although most of the story is told as if being recorded by Gurion at some unnamed point in time after the events of the book, there are other included documents that really flesh out Gurion and the characters around him including psychiatric reports, e-mails, and essays written by Gurion in detention. This really gives the reader the feeling that they are not just reading a story, but experiencing it.

By far Levin's greatest strength is his ability to create quirky and interesting characters. Obviously, Gurion is the most detailed, and manages to be a protagonist with both likable and unpleasant traits who you still can't help but love. A few of my other favorites are Gurion's best friends: short-tempered sociopath Benji Nakamook, blunt, foul-mouthed Vincie Portite, and enigmatic mute Leevon Ray. Although these characters along with June, Gurion's love interest, round out the main characters, Levin's supporting cast of minor characters still feel extremely real too (such as perfectly named basketball star Bam Slokum and obnoxious pop sensation Boystar, who I picture looking a lot like Justin Bieber). These characters and more populate Levin's scriptural epic and make you want to soldier through the thousand page epic to learn as much as you can about them.

The few criticisms I have for this otherwise stellar book are very specific to my own tastes. I am not Jewish and am therefore unfamiliar with a lot of the more in-depth Torah and Talmudic references that Gurion, as ten year old religious scholar makes. This doesn't necessarily take away from the story, it just makes small portions of the book where Gurion discusses religion in depth either with his teachers, his parents, or himself, a little harder to swallow. My only other issue lies with the format Levin chooses to put his included e-mails in. The e-mails featured in "The Instructions" are all long multi-input replies and forwards, yet Levin chooses to start all of his e-mails with the final reply and work backwards. This can be frustrating because you have to read the whole e-mail conversation in reverse, so I suggest skipping ahead to where the e-mail section ends in the book, and reading the e-mails backwards (if i'm not explaining this well, just read 100 or so pages in, you'll understand).

All in all, this has been one of the most rewarding things I've read this year. Despite its length, Levin's excellent novel takes you on a thrillride that will have you laughing, crying, thinking, and maybe even praying by the time it's over. Definitely a must-read that I would recommend to anyone.

The Gunslinger/ Stephen King

The Gunslinger By Stephen King. Post-apocalyptic, adventure, western, cryptic, horror 231 pages.

This was the first Stephen King book I have ever read. From what I had heard about him, I thought he only wrote scary books that would eventually become scary movies and the horror genre never appealed to me too much. Then, I read Patton Oswalt's "Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland", and although Oswalt ended up being a horrible writer with nothing too important to say himself, he did repeatedly provide evidence that we had similar taste in books, so when he wrote that Stephen King's Dark Tower series, of which the Gunslinger is the first volume, was one of the best series he's ever read, I had to give it a try.

Initially it seemed right up my alley. Post-apocalyptic wasteland America filled with desperate survivors, vicious and disgusting mutants, and terrifying supernatural occurrences? Sign me up!!! I was even intrigued by the frequent peppering of religious references that King threw into the story for good measure. One would assume that I would have nothing to say but good things about the book.

Unfortunately, I do have to tear the narrative to shreds for one particular reason-- King tries WAAAAAAAAAAY too hard to be cryptic and mysterious. I understand that if you give the reader everything they need to know right from the start, you will lose their interest. Cliffhangers are necessary, and for the most part enjoyable, because they spur discussion between readers. I do think, however, that some regulations need to made on presenting unanswered questions for the reader. I have always believed that in a cryptic narrative such as this, the writer needs to give the reader one answer for every three questions they pose. This still allows the author to keep the reader guessing, but at the same time provides incremental incentive to keep reading instead of just giving up and saying "that's it, I am officially more confused than Sarah Palin and George W. Bush during an episode of Lost". King's question-to-answer ratio is somewhere around 10:1 which gets EXTREMELY annoying about halfway through the book because curiosity turns into aggravation.

That being said, I am certainly going to try to read the second volume in the series, but if this trend of unnecessary mysteriousness continues, then I can't promise that i'll keep going after that one.