Going Bovine

Going Bovine

By: Libba Bray

Random House Inc. ©2009

9780385733977

A punk rock angel, giant fire demons, the Copenhagen Interpretation, Disney World, a talking gnome and the road trip of a lifetime, what could these things possibly have in common? Cameron Smith is an average, underachieving high school student. He is completely disconnected from his family and has few friends at school. Cameron takes his life for granted until he is diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human equivalent of mad-cow disease. When a punk rock angel named Dulcie shows up in his hospital room and tells him that he needs to find Dr. X in order to save the world and himself, Cameron isn’t sure if he’s lost his mind or if he really is the world’s last hope. Libba Bray takes the reader through a labyrinth of coincidences, teaching Cameron to appreciate the small pleasures in life and not take it for granted. Bray developed a wide variety of quirky characters from a four-foot, hypochondriac dwarf to a Norse god trapped in the body of a garden gnome and each one plays a role in changing Cameron’s view of the world. She keeps the reader rooted in the real world with brief glimpses of the hospital Cameron thinks he has escaped. “My dreams kaleidoscope in and out of each other. I’m lying in my hospital bed, listening to the whirr of a respirator, Glory marking something on my chart” (Bray 306). These random snippets of life at the hospital make the reader question the reality of the story. Bray’s unique writing style can be confusing in the beginning but she ties everything together in the end, making a complex and engaging story that leaves the reader wondering what was reality and what was dream.

This novel could be the introduction to a writing assignment such as “if I had two weeks to live, I would…”. It also creates a rich opportunity for the class to discuss/debate what was reality and what was dream/hallucination. This novel would also make an awesome brown bag book report.

This novel is the winner of the 2010 Michael Printz Award.

Horn Book Magazine—“Readers will have a great time trying to sort everything out and answer the question at the heart of it all: even if Cameron’s experiences are all a dream, are they any less real?” (C.M.).

Booklist—“Give this to teens looking for some philosophical nuttiness—is Cameron’s trip real or not?” (Cruze).

Works Cited

C. M., H. "Going Bovine." Horn Book Magazine 85.5 (2009): 553-554. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 29 Nov. 2010.

Cruze, Karen. "Going Bovine." Booklist 106.9/10 (2010): 110. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 29 Nov. 2010.