Going Bovine

I started the review of this book over a month ago (I actually finished the book in March), but I am still at a loss for words as to what to say about this book.  Maybe I should just start with the facts:

• It's big
• It won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature in for 2010
• Its weird - case in point, the upright cow carrying a yard gnome that's wearing sunglasses on the cover

Cameron is 16 and he's gonna die.  No spoilers here, you know that from the inside flap.  Cam's got mad cow disease and the book is one ginormous hallucination of an adventure with a semi-friend and dwarf named Gonzo; a yard gnome that may or may not be the incarnate Viking god Balder; and featuring spotty appearances by an punk-angel with a sweet tooth, appropriately named Dulcie.

This book took me a long time to read, and that kind of bothers me.  Sure I wanted to know what happened in the end and how the characters got there, but only sort of.  What's even more weird to me is that a chunk of this book takes place in New Orleans and I still wasn't that excited about it.  Now that I think about it, I liked the "thank you's" Libba Bray gives at the beginning of the book more than the book itself.