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A review by revisins
Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles by Ron Currie Jr.
5.0
Courtesy of the Goodreads First Reads program and Viking Publishing Ron Currie Jr’s latest Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles now graces my bookshelves. The book is a postmodern delight of our shared modern times. It is a deceptively simple book that unpacks its message and themes of reality, perception, and the concept of truth within grief in a kaleidoscopic swirl of a story.
If you prefer your stories to be linear and your characters likable, relatable, or just altogether able—one, you probably don’t enjoy most postmodern lit and would not pick up this book—and two…just look elsewhere. This is a story that escapes easy description and genre labels. Many will view this book as “literary fiction” a lofty and redundant description that is tossed onto material that people so that it becomes more precious. This is not a precious story. It’s grimy and gnarly. It plays like a rom-com gone wrong where Ferris Bueller after an extended alcoholic jag is the lead.
The book feels autobiographical, but the opening pages and dedication throw everything away and you have little choice but to accept the story turns as they come. Because if you like stories more simply because they are based on true events—Currie has some words for you to read.
There are no chapter headings. There are hardly chapters to speak of really—just a collection of fragmented thoughts, vignettes, and scene descriptions that cohere into a book that will challenge you at almost every page turn. This book may become standard reading in college classrooms as it shows how to be creative within the “mundane” associations of life.
To describe the plot would do the book and the inherent reading pleasure a grand disservice. Except to say the book tracks the rise and fall of the author’s avatar, appropriately named Ron Currie Jr, in the romantic, social, familial, and private aspects of his life. You know how the story ends before you get forty pages into the novel—and it just motivates you to read all the more.
If you have the opportunity to read the book—please do—at least twice. If you have the chance to buy the book—please do—twice. Understand that a book like Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles may not be your typical beach read or flip through bestseller—think twice before ignoring it on the shelf. Second chances don’t come all that often—this story will only remind of that.
[b:Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles|15811580|Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles|Ron Currie Jr.|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1351284917s/15811580.jpg|21536844]
If you prefer your stories to be linear and your characters likable, relatable, or just altogether able—one, you probably don’t enjoy most postmodern lit and would not pick up this book—and two…just look elsewhere. This is a story that escapes easy description and genre labels. Many will view this book as “literary fiction” a lofty and redundant description that is tossed onto material that people so that it becomes more precious. This is not a precious story. It’s grimy and gnarly. It plays like a rom-com gone wrong where Ferris Bueller after an extended alcoholic jag is the lead.
The book feels autobiographical, but the opening pages and dedication throw everything away and you have little choice but to accept the story turns as they come. Because if you like stories more simply because they are based on true events—Currie has some words for you to read.
There are no chapter headings. There are hardly chapters to speak of really—just a collection of fragmented thoughts, vignettes, and scene descriptions that cohere into a book that will challenge you at almost every page turn. This book may become standard reading in college classrooms as it shows how to be creative within the “mundane” associations of life.
To describe the plot would do the book and the inherent reading pleasure a grand disservice. Except to say the book tracks the rise and fall of the author’s avatar, appropriately named Ron Currie Jr, in the romantic, social, familial, and private aspects of his life. You know how the story ends before you get forty pages into the novel—and it just motivates you to read all the more.
If you have the opportunity to read the book—please do—at least twice. If you have the chance to buy the book—please do—twice. Understand that a book like Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles may not be your typical beach read or flip through bestseller—think twice before ignoring it on the shelf. Second chances don’t come all that often—this story will only remind of that.
[b:Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles|15811580|Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles|Ron Currie Jr.|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1351284917s/15811580.jpg|21536844]