Just a Couple of Days

Rating:
Summary: mostly marvelous
Review: This was a terrific novel. If you don't mind poetic prose in the telling of a story, this one's for you. For me, the writing worked marvelously 98% of the time. 2% of the time, I could see what he was reaching for (and Vigorito reaches some remarkable heights with his linguistic faculty), but for whatever reason he didn't quite get it, or didn't quite get what he could have gotten. It's extremely heartening to know that this is his first novel. I expect perfection in his next.

Esoteric writing critiques aside, the story itself was awesome.

Rating:
Summary: it's all too much
Review: A blurb on the cover calls this a Dr. Strangelove for the biotech century. Well, it turns out that review isn't even half correct. Don't get me wrong: at one level, Just a Couple of Days could be considered that, but there was so much more going on here than a wicked satire of military madness. That would have been enough for me, but Vigorito went ahead and dished out poignancy in the main character, suspense in the plot twists, hilarity in the dialogue, philosophical, psychological, and sociological insight, a bizarre assortment of trivia, and sublime beauty in his descriptive turns of phrase. Simply awesome. I can't wait for his next book.



Rating:
Summary: Read this book
Review: This is one of the great unknown books out there. The writting is terrific and the story is wonderful. You will not regret reading this book. The end of this book will leave you smiling and wanting to be outside.

Rating:
Summary: mind-expanding
Review: The best thing I can say to review this book is to quote an anonymous review, posted on the Just a Couple of Days website:

---Screw comparing this work to other authors or novels. Reading this book was like tripping at a Grateful Dead show. A constant mixture of surreal elation and fear, facial muscles cramping from hours of intense perma-grin. Each sentence a delicate riff; each paragraph a blazing solo; a rolling jam from chapter to chapter, briefly pausing for breath only between sets. Although you are barely hanging on through the intense waves of emotion, each set takes it up another notch, cracking open your mind to yet another realm of perception...---

While I've never tripped at a Grateful Dead show, I think I understand what this anonymous person is getting at: This is a mind-expanding novel, in whatever sense you take that term to mean. The rhythm of the writing is hard to resist, and by the time I finished I was at peace with the universe, if only for a little while.