review by Maryom
As the book opens, a young man, Gabriel Brockwell, decides to check himself out of rehab and commit suicide - though not just yet. First he intends to meet up with his best friend and party. This entails heading to Tokyo, getting the said friend into a heap of trouble (and a Japanese jail) and then jetting off to Berlin to find someone who may be able to help get them out of this mess.
There's always a worrying sort of feeling when reading a supposed good book and finding it just doesn't work for you. Are you the odd one out? or is it a question of the Emperor's new clothes - no one dare appear to question it? Well, I don't mind being the odd weirdo, so I must say this book didn't do much for me (neither did The Life of Pi, Harry Potter or The Da Vinci Code in their various ways).
Sadly Lights Out In Wonderland was a book I was really happy to reach the end of. It's told in the first person by Gabriel Brockwell and the action, as he pursues his drink and drug fuelled journey, is interspersed with his thoughts on life, society, capitalism, drugs ..... Sometimes his asides are so numerous they're relegated to asterisked footnotes. It all makes for a slow-paced, long hard slog of a read. There were bits I enjoyed but not enough to really grab me.
Maryom's review - 2 stars
Publisher - Faber & Faber
Genre - Adult Literary
Buy Lights Out in Wonderland
from Amazon
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