Beautiful Children and Other Odds and Ends

I just finished reading Beautiful Children by Charles Bock and this book is absolutely amazing. While it's kind of hard to recommend to people unless I really know them and know their taste in books, I think this was an incredible read and definitely worth the time.

The story is set in Las Vegas around the disappearance of a young boy named Newell Ewing. The novel follows his parents as they deal with the tragedy, while also weaving together other stories to create the overall tapestry of events that took place the night Newell disappears. Other characters include a geeky comic book artist, a group of runaway street kids, a stripper named Cheri Blossom and her boyfriend Ponyboy (named after Hinton's characters in the Outsiders).

I loved the author's style. This is his first book, and rumor has it it took him 11 years and 4 drafts to complete the novel. His hard work was worthwhile. His style is extremely raw and real, and as your reading you get the impression that he actually knows these characters intimately. He knows their lives and motivations and everything about them. The old addage is true, a writer should write what he knows. Bock grew up in Vegas, so he probably did know many people like these characters.

I must offer a word of caution though. This novel is at times extremely provocative, graphic and sometimes shocking. There's a lot of language, sex, pornography, etc. But the story is amazing. Usually I would have been turned off by a lot of the content of this novel, it's not something I would have chosen myself to read (we started a book club at work and one of the guys chose this, not knowing much about it) but something about this story captured my interest and kept me reading till the end.

Other Stuff:

I planned on reading Neverwhere next, as it was recommended to me by a friend, but we were out of copies at work so I'm currently reading Smoke & Mirrors, short stories by Neil Gaiman. Some are kind of strange some are really interesting. I'm beginning to love Gaiman's writing.

I'm planning on adding a list to the left with my current list of planned reading. If anyone has recommendations please feel free to mention them. I'm willing give almost anything a try (with the exception of romance novels or manga).