Rating: 1 of 5 stars ⭐️
By: Kato Justus
The Gist: Imagine a Drug-Fueled Cheech & Chong Seriously Contemplating the Meaning of Life.
Their northward journey from the southern part of Australia to the northern part takes the group through Coober Pedy. Coober Pedy is an opal mining settlement in a hellish desert area of Australia where the residents carve out caves to live underground so they can survive scorching surface temperatures. I found that part of the story fascinating.
The primary characters end up at a horse ranch. There are some interesting descriptions of training as one of the characters is a “horse whisperer.” That is the part of the story I most enjoyed.
The theme of the story is living life as you want before dying. The book also touches on the stupidity of bigotry. This group of young rebels approaches their life before death thought experiment by spending most of their time high—smoking weed or taking psilocybin mushrooms. Then they begin navel-gazing on the meaning of life.
Imagine a drug-fueled Cheech and Chong seriously contemplating the meaning of life. Then you have the gist of this story.
In my opinion, the author squandered opportunities to make the story more exciting by not focusing upon possible areas of conflict that might occur between this group of renegades and the societal antagonists they were trying to avoid. As a creative piece, this book needs work because there are errors; spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Criticisms aside, there are some real gems in the writing and storytelling. I hesitate to read Matthew William Frend's “The Free World War" because of my experience with this one.
I thank the author for giving me a copy of his book in exchange for my honest (I dreaded writing) review.
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