I've read Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty series, which fascinated me, as well as the Beauty Queen nove,l which made me laugh, and when i picked this book up I thought "Wow....sounds interesting." However I should have know better... This book was not fascinating and no where near as funny as Beauty Queens. I thought I was going to see how crazy it could be for someone who's brain was degrading but instead I got more of Bray's opinions on modern day society like that in Beauty Queens but the setting didn't fit her opinion so it all just seemed wrong. Bray takes shot after shot at youth entertainment mainly making fun of the television we watch, the things our generation find important, the people who idol, the resorts we vacation at and just about everything to do with our regular lives and makes it seem like the "loner" style teen/people are the ones who really understand this world. Then throw in some fire giants, physics (which Libba skirts around really explaining and somehow makes it seem like they really know what they are talking about), an angel, and Yard Gnome believed to me the Norse god Baulder, and you have me uninterested and disappointed. The sad thing was the book had such great potential in the beginning and actually had me interested and for that I had to read the remainder of the book, only to find the ending most disappointed where Bray tries to take a stab at Religions and what happens to us after death, which is a water that I think no one should dip their feet into unless under the right circumstance and with the right well written book. Not that this book was not well written. Don't get me wrong Libba Bray knows proper grammar and writing styles, and doesn't lead her readers on as she interrupts Cameron's adventures with a little glimpse behind the curtain to what is really happening with Cameron. And yes, there is no way that I can say truthfully that what happens in the book (the adventure that Cameron has) is not really what people imagine/think of when they have Mad Cow disease. People hallucinate ...I get that. And when they hallucinate they sometimes see some messed up things... I get that too, but somehow Bray seems to even stretch that. I took me two months to read this novel. I read the first half very fast within 48 hours then the second half was just too much for me but I had to see how she was going to end it and I did. I would have preferred to use my time reading another book instead of this. All and All not horrible just stretched and to much politics and opinion in a teen novel.

Cameron, your below average kid, was planning to just cruise through life under the radar. Why waste so much effort when we're all going to end up six feet under in the end? It isn't until one day when he finds out that he's diagnosed with a deadly disease that his whole view on the world is forced to change... And so begins his journey with a punk angel/hallucination, a dwarf, and a yard gnome. Also, physics. The good: THIS BOOK IS INSANE! I have honestly never read a book like this before in my life. It's a book about being alive, about experiencing all that you can with everything that you are. It's about opening your mind to new ideas, about thinking outside the box, about imagining beyond the normal realms of physics. It's also about friendship, love, and hope. The writing itself is very upbeat, though it knows how to be dark when it wants to be. It's whimsical, though it balances itself out by the use of real physics theories. The plot is great, and gives you a lot to think about. The bad: THIS BOOK IS INSANE! The first 76 pages were dull and uninspiring. For a book that promised adventure, it sure took its sweet time. But when the action does start, the book literally pushes your face to the ground in its hurry to show you the cool parts of the book. I don't mean that the book had a rushed pace - I mean that it throws about a million physics theories at you and pretty much goes, "You don't have to understand it... Just run with it!" I understood most of the theories since I took theoretical physics, but everyone else is going to be lost, and that's a big shame. You don't NEED to understand the physics to enjoy the book, but you'll have to pretty much turn off your brain when you get to the physics parts, because the book will not explain much to you - and unfortunately, the physics takes up a lot of the book. Physicists will get the full impact of this book. For everyone else, turn off your brain and enjoy the ride.

This is one of the best teen science ficiton books i have ever read. Because it is a teen novel the book isn't completely sciencey. (it involves the main character, cameron doing drugs, partying, and thinking quite a bit about sex). I didn't know what to expect having read libba bray's a great and terrible beauty triology which is more of a fantasy magic kind of genre. I was surprised by this book in a good way, its definitely unexpected. It's twisted and random. I was kind of expecting more from this book because it had won the michael l printz award for 2010. This book is more of a 3 star read for myself because its a little too teen fiction for me but its definitely a 4 star book if that makes sense. I think that many libba bray fans could be disappointed by this book because of it's science fiction genre.

This book was okay. I liked the beginning few chapters but the book its self was not that good. I liked the humor used when talking about the strange person's music, but other than that.... I didn't like it. It is completely random, the ending is horrible, and I don't get the plot. This isn't even close to her other books. I would not recommend this book to a friend.

Cameron just wants to get through high school being invisible, smoking weed and listening to his Great Trembelo records. Everything turns around when he gets diagnosed with CJ (mad cow disease) and gets sent on a mission by the angel Dulcie to save the universe along with his dwarf sidekick. This has got to be the most RANDOM book I have ever read. The road trip had the most random events occur that you would never expect! Some of the things mentioned in this book were: Disneyworld, parallel universes, fire giants, mardi gras, YA TV! ( a tv station like MTV), Physics, magic screws, viking gods/gnomes. I have to say that I did really like this book. It was so different from anything Ive ever read. It had funny dialogues and the road trip journey really had me so into book. Out of the characters I really loved Balder, he just won my heart over. I also liked how Cameron's character grows throughout the book. The ending definitely had me thinking A LOT! Overall a very very interesting read. If the plot isn't enough to get you to read the book, I suggest you still pick it up because I guarantee you will never read anything like this..ever!

Reason for Reading: I enjoyed Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle books so was up for reading whatever she wrote next. Summary: The book starts of with Cameron, your typical slacker 16-year-old living in a family that has drifted into typical modern, busy, note-leaving suburbanites, while he and his popular younger sister are at that stage where they hate each other at home and she pretends he don't exist outside of the house. Since Cameron often does strange things it isn't easily noticeable when he first starts showing strange behaviour, yelling out at hallucinations and twitching. Not until he has a major seizure at school and is taken to the hospital do the doctor's start their weeks long testing and it is diagnosed that Cameron has Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (often referred to as the human form of mad cow disease). It is at this point that Cameron is visited by a punk angel, and sent on a road trip with his hospital room mate, a hypochondriac teen dwarf. Thus starts their surreal, hallucinogenic, out of this world journey across the States which has them visiting a happiness cult, picking up a yard gnome who think he is a Viking god, meeting a dead New Orleans jazz player, playing weird TV game shows, being chased down by the snow globe corporation and meeting up with a group of scientists who are on the verge of parallel world travel. This is the tip of the iceberg. Comments: What can I say? The book is very well written and one wild ride from start to finish. There is plenty of humour, the events are so out there that everything is surreal. Written in the first person of Cameron, the reader knows from the outset that we have an unreliable narrator. Cameron will tell us the hallucinations he is having then he tells us the 'real' strange things he sees. What is reality? The book's whole purpose seems to be to examine death. The process of knowing you are to die soon, how you handle that knowledge. When do you start living? Is it ever too late to start living? What is living anyway? What happens at the end? There are no spiritual connections made and for me that made the examination process fall flat and ultimately meaningless. However you may reach a different conclusion. Even though the book's message didn't hit home with me, I enjoyed the road trip (mostly) for what it was, a lot of eccentric characters and crazy events. There does come a time in the story though when everything suddenly became clear and from that point on I felt the book was longer than it needed to be. The charade kept being played and the hints kept being dropped to the point of frustration for this reader. I would have liked to have seen more of the family's reactions, feelings and coping during this time that Cameron was away. Finally, the language in the book is very vulgar and I found that hugely off-putting though I do realize it was realistic of the characters. Ultimately, I did have some problems with the story and some other issues with some of the content that I would rather have done without but it certainly is an entertaining story. I enjoyed the characters of Gonzo, the Mexican dwarf, and Balder, the Viking garden gnome the best. I couldn't put the book down and read it quickly over the weekend. This book isn't going to appeal to everyone, and it is not anything like the author's Gemma Doyle books, but if the strange, phantasmagoric and surreal appeal to you then this may be right up your alley.

This book was trying too hard. Trying too hard to be funny, too hard to be relatable, too hard to make sense. Okay, scratch the last one: this book made no sense at all. And that's a shame, because it had promise. When Libba Bray wasn't trying too hard, there were passages of utter brilliance. Coincidentally, most of these passages contained no dialogue and contained no mention of the characters. Hmmm. Some may argue that the nonsensical way in which events unroll contribute to the book's charm. And yeah, I can see that. But the author tok it too far. It's like she wanted to write the most random book (honestly, THE MOST RANDOM BOOK) possible and figured that she could get away with it by making the main character have mad-cow disease and for most of the book to be a hallucination. The randomness is no accident, as contradictory as that seems. If you read it (I'm not suggesting that you do) you will see that this is absolutely true. Though very few of the strings of the story are tied up by the end, the only question you'll be asking yourself is, "What did I just read?'

This book was funny, romantic, daring, and surprising! I laughed at many times, and I was shocked too. I really enjoyed the Gemma Doyle series by the same author, so I had to read this book and I'm glad I did! I think you should get this book, but it does have curse words, and kissing and some sex. But other then that, you should really read this book!

I absolutely loved Going Bovine! It was hilarious, heartwarming and one hell of a journey. Bray's trademark style has transformed itself into the life of Cameron, who is diagnosed with mad cow disease and finds hope for a cure from Dulcie, an angel with a bad sugar habit so he sets off with Gonzo, his dwarf friend across the country to find the cure. From smoothie drinking happiness cults to hitch-hiker thiefs, nothing is ordinary anymore!

Bray concocts a world where parallel universes are not only plausible, but exist or maybe not…it all depends on what you choose through door number one. Where Angels can wear dock martins and eat candy and Lawn Gnomes can be Gods. From the ridiculous to the mundane, she pushes us to read and question and determine if what we are reading is reality, or, is it just something in Cameron’s mad cow diseased mind…and you never really quite know. This is definitely one of my top picks for teens this fall.