What Extence gets absolutely right in this book is the mixture of naivety with sincerity with a clear sense of irony. It doesn't have the level of absurdity of Vonnegut but that's not the point of this book, so don't expect any Tralfamadorians. It is the story of an unlikely friendship, that's definitely true, and it's a beautiful story from my point of view. It's fairly apparent from the first chapter, to me, what exactly is going on here: what matters is how we get there, and how much less funny/quirky it seems by the end, and how much more sad and true and beautiful. But if you don't want to know, don't read any further in this review.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed "The Universe Versus Alex Woods" a lot. It is a beautifully written and emotionally resonant novel that will stay with you long after you finish reading it. Gavin Extence has created a truly memorable character in Alex Woods. Much of the wit of The Universe Versus Alex Woods derives from our protagonist’s deadpan narrative voice. Both logical and naive, Alex is inadvertently funny and, like the narrator of Mark Haddon’s A Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night-Time, needs to explain everything in great detail. Appalled to think that his handshake might have been on the limp side when meeting the curator of the National History Museum, Alex grips him tightly on departing, so as not to “leave any doubt that the morning’s handshake had been an anomaly”. Likewise, it’s impossible to keep a straight face when he describes a conversation with an irritable Swiss hotel clerk in which Alex insists on speaking in his newly acquired German — “His slightly edgy disposition I put down to my over-zealous war-film accent.” Beneath this humour, though, lies unexpected emotional depth. So fluently entertaining and unflinching is Extence’s writing that it almost comes as a surprise to realise how moving Alex’s story really is. urn:lcp:universeversusal0000exte_k4z0:epub:fab24bb8-a52e-4644-b107-5cf04a86cfe7 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier universeversusal0000exte_k4z0 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t3qw5p64w Invoice 1652 Isbn 9780316246576 But the novel won me over. Extence tells a great story that owes much to Vonnegut, but also something to Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. It's hard not to see an echo of Harry Potter, too, in the boy-hero with a scar on his head. The final section is humane and touching, and Extence deserves credit for the clever and timely idea of fictionalising a trip to the Swiss death clinic.I can't say this is a coming-of-age story, though, because Alex is pretty much mature for his age already. Instead, this is a story about how little incidents in our lives influence events in the future. You will have to ask yourself, if these series of incidents didn't happen to Alex, would his life have been different? If I had chosen to take the bus instead of walking, would I be with my boyfriend right now? And similar questions, which makes life so damn confusing and yet amazing. In a way, this book is a celebration of that. I'm teaching Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five this fall, so I re-read the book last week. Then, Gaiman's new book was released, and I read that one. I signed into Goodreads to review The Ocean at the End of the Lane (which was really good) and saw Gaiman's recommendation for The Universe Versus Alex Woods. I bought the book without reading more about it because I needed something to read on vacation, and I liked the cover. As a result of the meteorite injury, Woods becomes epileptic, given to suffering seizures. He also has a large scar on his head. Around the neighborhood, he is known as "the boy who lived" or "the boy who survived."

I absolutely fell for this book and it’s become one that I keep recommending to people, to the point where they say, ‘Yeah, it’s okay. You already told us how much you loved that book.’The friendship between Alex and Mr. Peterson is very much like that of Russell and Carl in Up: a young boy befriends a grouchy old man who lost his wife, and eventually the two begin to consider each other as a family of sorts. I loved watching this friendship grow and develop. Though it was filled with difficulties, the influence that this friendship had on both parties was quite powerful - especially towards the end where it is shown just how much they are willing to do for each other. At the beginning of the novel, Alex is a boy, but with Mr. Peterson's help, he becomes a man with a heightened sense of integrity and a new outlook on life. An introverted bookworm epileptic who loves learning about math, physics, astronomy, and who openly admits that his hobbies are definitely "gay" (in the high school context) Alex himself is growing and rising to the task that Peterson puts him to - it’s a very remarkable literary journey.