Review: Awful, Ohio by Jeff Neal

Description:
Every morning the sun rises, waking Awful, Ohio, overlooking all of its residents, guiding them towards another productive and profitable working day. The economy is strong and the money is abundant, all of which are offered to whomever produces and profits the most product. The masses rejoice daily over the informed opportunity, with the exception of Troy Slushy.

Troy Slushy wakes every morning to the intrusion of the sun abruptly charging into his home, removing him from his enchanting dreams. The sun exposes his collection of worthless possessions, his depressed wife seeking salvation, his withering home struggling for support, and the life-decimating job that is undesirably forced upon him daily. This is Troy Slushy's existence in Awful, Ohio, and because of this exposure to this monotonous misery, Troy's enemy is the sun.

Heavily sedated by a dream-enriched epiphany, Troy removes his concerns for the demands and priorities of Awful, Ohio, replacing them with the objective of permanently removing the sun from his existence. He gathers his wife and begins a quest to save them both from their sun-exposed lives of suffering in Awful, Ohio, concocting plans and blueprints of various sun-destroying methods. Unfortunately for Troy, this proves to be easier said than done. But luckily, Troy discovers that perseverance is much more eminent in accomplishing a goal than feasibility, as he is able to assemble a massive scheme to achieve perpetual darkness, but not without affecting Awful, Ohio and all of its production, profits, and population.
(From the book’s website)

Details:
Available for purchase from the Awful, Ohio website.

Review:
Jeff Neal contacted me about reviewing his first (at at the time still in printing) novel, Awful, Ohio.  He sent me the absolutely best request ever.  I hope that you can read it because it’s great!

So, after reading his email, checking out the website for the book, I decided it was a must-review book.  And, in order to help promote the inaugural printing, I bumped something around on the TBR and set about reading Awful, Ohio.

I know that many reviewers are wary of self-publishers, stating that quality of the writing is poor, as well as the pervasiveness of grammatical  and spelling errors.  I must be on a run of good luck, because all the self-published books I have read have been really good, including Awful, Ohio.

Neal uses a writing technique that is unlike anything I’ve read thus far.  There is a redundancy that propels the story along, reminding you of motives, reasoning, and the succubus-like tendencies of Awful, Ohio.  Troy Slushy, sets out one day, blaming the sun for being the root of his unhappiness, to destroy the sun.  So, as out-there as Troy is, I can totally sympathize with where he is coming from.  Working for the man at a dead-end job, discord at home, disarray in all aspects of life.  There’s got to be something to blame, right?  Most of us wouldn’t leap to the conclusion of the sun being to blame, but Troy does, and thus sets the plot in motion.

Quickly enough, Troy, with the help of his wife Lacy, realizes that destroying the sun is much to hard a task to accomplish.  So, they change plans.  I don’t always agree with how Troy goes about accomplishing his goal, but it is entertaining to see how his lunacy and  discontentedness drives him.

The story of how Sammy Ammo became Sammy Ammo is quite sad.  It seems to much like our legal system at times, to force values upon society that their upbringing or religious beliefs hold a different, even if not illegal.  I hurt for Sammy and understood where he was coming from.

I won’t spoil the ending, because I didn’t see it coming, and don’t want to ruin it for you, either.  I will say this about it, I really really like the ending.  And, if you follow my reviews, you know endings are important to me.

 

4 Trees: Awfully awesome.

Get to reading,
Richard

*This book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review*


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