A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

The first 60 pages of this book were unstoppable. And from there, it descended into a kind of Shantaram-/The Killing-style chaotic, unplanned, rambling, self-absorbed twaddle. Obviously that didn't stop me from reading it, but by the end I did want to write the guy an invoice for the hours of my life I spent reading this and will never recover.

The question of 'must I become my father/how do I step out from the shadow of my father and then crawl out from under the weight of my sumo-sized uncle?' and 'is there any such thing as 'good'?' are all worthy of a discursive narrative, but the characters in this book are too utterly ridiculous for any fruits of this pondering to have any credibility.

In a Shantaram-tastic way, some of the stories in this book are utterly brilliant. But it's like how simply wearing all your favourite clothes at once does not necessarily an outfit make. Countless people (those who short-listed for the 2008 Man Booker Prize, to name a few) disagree with me about this, but clearly they are wrong got something out of this that I didn't. Good for them.

Sorry dude, no dice.