#read instead dodger

Short version: Two college kids drive around in the snow.  He’s about to join the army.  They fail to see the national landmark, Thunderhead Underground falls.

What I thought:  That’s all.  That’s it.  There is nothing that happens in this story.  At first I thought the nowhere conversations and the little stops they make in their snowy drive were Tarantinoing, that is to say, small conversations and focuses that make the action all the more jarring by contrast.  Turns out, no, this is what looks like a word-for-word account of real life, which if you’ve ever listened to how real life is, you understand how bored I was.
Also annoying is that the cover art is so much more interesting than the art inside.  I picked it up because it reminded me of Edward Gorey or Richard Sala, all full of sinister foreboding and close detail.  When it turned out to be quite the opposite, sloppy line drawing and all-white backgrounds (snow, remember), by then I had to finish the damn thing just to get some validation.  It never came.
The pacing jumped around a lot as well, sometimes flashing forward to the boy lying on his bunk in boot camp, but it might also have been a cancer ward because the only details we get are that he and his bunkmate are bald and weepy.
For a mediocre time and dull art, go to a public restroom.  If that doesn’t last long enough, read Thunderhead Underground Falls.

Ugh, what a waste of time.  You want something that actually looks like it belongs inside of that cover?  I’ll save you, baby birds.

Read instead: Delphineby Richard Sala, The Motherless Oven by Rob Davis, House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski, Dodgerby Terry Pratchett.