Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read and review this book.
I have to admit to a few things up front - when I started seeing reviews of this book through various sources, I thought it sounded so intriguing and was thrilled to get an advance reader's copy. Then I saw it was 880 pages! That's a huge commitment but I was determined. I have also never read any of this author's works before so had no preconceived notions of his writing.
I'm also a little ambivalent about my review - I really liked the first half of the book but the second half seemed to get way too bogged down for me. And I'm not a prude but there was way too much sex of all varieties in this book, even though I get that it's about young men!
That being said, this was one of the most creative books I have read and I started talking about it right away. A young boy is born and from there, the book explores 4 different paths of his life. The lives of all the Fergusons are spelled out in different chapters taking place in different times of his life. So all the beginning stories are listed in chapters such as 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 while we explore the 4 different paths.
The author uses paragraph or longer length sentences and it can be somewhat confusing to keep track of which Ferguson you're reading about, although the author does a great job of giving enough clues to figure it out. Plus, the same basic characters come in and out of Ferguson's life in all its versions.
While some might not, I really liked the ending so as I'm writing this I'm giving it 4 stars. If you would have asked me about 3/4 of the way through, I might have gone with 3. There is SO much information here - Ferguson in all lives is a huge movie and literature buff and the setting and time periods allow for much exploration of the political and racial movements of our time, especially during the 60s.
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