chris c

I had no expectations going into this book. It starts as a fine and engaging read, but dwindles into an uninteresting finale populated by obnoxious people that I disliked. I was interested in the Tarahumara, Copper Canyons, and the mysterious Caballo. Notions of evolution and the science of endurance running kept me engaged. Half way through I thought about giving up, and soon I was reading only the first sentence of each paragraph. The latter half becomes disjunct and doesn't successfully or satisfactorily stitch together the specifics of the narrative and the general information about running. By the end I no longer cared about the identity of Caballo or the outcome of the race. Disappointing.

Im uncertain what I disliked most, the misuse of words like "decimate", sentences with three exclamation points, the relentless and pointless liberal political perspective that alienates half the population, the fact that the novel is set in Madison without anything inherently Madisonian, the prose and dialogue that didn't further the story, or the unreliable narrator for whom it's impossible to feel sympathy. Hmmm... I wanted to like this. Skip it, it's bad.