Book Details:Title: Just Kid Me Old Highway Old Wildway O Pecos Bill
Author: William Linehan
Published: 2011- Sagebrush Press
ISBN: 978-0-930704-35-3
Pages: 590 pages
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 1 of 5
Read In: 7 days
My Review:
The title says it all- this book makes absolutely no sense. The majority of the time I found myself staring dumbfounded at the pages, hoping Mr. Linehan had been on some kind of mind-altering drug while writing. Then again, I don’t know what would possess Sagebrush Press to publish this novel either. It was painful to finish and I may have lost a few brain cells along the way.
Words elude me when I try to think of something good to point out about Just Kid Me Old Highway Old Wildway O Pecos Bill. I spent so much time convincing myself to read just one more chapter and maybe the protagonist will wake up and it turns out it was all a really messed up dream. Unfortunately, that never happened. The best I can guess is that the main protagonist, known as the Kid, had a very overactive imagination as a boy and now nearing middle-age, he’s reverting back to the fantasies he had in childhood- playing baseball with Pecos Bill, running around with Johnny Appleseed, a turtle camouflaged as a hubcap, the weirdness goes on and on. But that doesn’t make up for the fact that 80% of the novel is complete nonsense and the other 20% is not a very exciting story line. When Pecos Bill shows up in his yard in the middle of the night, the Kid tries to convince him he's not the Kid anymore and can't just leave to go on a roadtrip, as Bill suggests he needs to do. Alas, he changes his mind and off they go.
One thing that stood out in Linehan's writing is his overly extensive use of color when describing things. At some points, color even comes right out of the characters' mouths. Which is just plain weird and there's really no point for it. But he includes color somewhere on just about every page in the book, something that began to bother me fairly early in as there is more to description than colors...
Overall, I don't recommend anyone waste their time reading this novel and I sincerely hope Linehan looks for another creative outlet because novels just aren't his forte. One out of five stars for Just Kid Me Old Highway Old Wildway O Pecos Bill.
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