Cannonball Read III: Book #25/52Published: 2000
Pages: 256 (11,135 total so far)
Genre: Coming-of-age
L.I.E. is kind of hard to describe because it barely has a plot. It loosely follows a guy named Harlan and his girlfriend (sometimes) Sarah through various periods of their young adult life in the late 1980s/early 1990s. It's a very disjointed story that cuts to a different storyline practically every paragraph and a different year every chapter.
I don't think I "got" this book. It started off really boring. In the middle, it sort of got interesting for a chapter or two when the story started flowing a little better (i.e. not jumping back and forth between EVERY paragraph). Then the last third or so what just a big pile of WTF.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
It starts getting kind of weird when Sarah borrows Harlan's car and gets run off the road by a black car with tinted windows. Up until this point, it was pretty much your run-of-the-mill teenage angst story. But then Sarah get away from the black car and it follows her to Harlan's workplace parking lot where the car tries to run her over. After escaping again, they open the car door to discover a crash test dummy was driving the rogue car. WHAT? Then a new chapter starts in some other year. Nothing else is said about it. If anyone can explain that to me, please do.
Also, the end is weird and makes no sense. Harlan and his new friend are driving the friend's little sister to school. They are trying to listen to a tape they made of their band and all of a sudden, the tape starts spewing out the book. Like an actual narration from the book you're currently reading - describing what they're doing and such. Of course this freaks them out. This is also never explained because the book just ENDS.
***END OF SPOILERS***
Why are we introducing new characters in the last chapter? WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT TAPE ABOUT?? This has got to be the most baffling book I have ever read.
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