I aM radaR

     "I'm afraid of dying alone."
     "I would never let you die alone," said Misa.
     "I love you, Misa, but we all die alone.  They never tell you this in school, but this is the only truth you can depend upon.  Solitary demise."
     "But then you still go to heaven.  And heaven is full of people."
     "Miroslav smiled.  "And then you go to heaven, Misa.  Full of people.  It's true.  There's always that.  Although you could go to hell."
     "Lots of people there, too," said Misa.  "You'll never be alone."

Reif Larsen

I saw this book at Barnes & Noble in the new fiction section, but didn't pick it up because (1) I'd not heard of it, (2) I didn't recognize the name of the author, & (3) I thought it had a shitty cover design 

( 

 ).

But I noticed it a second time at B&N, and then when I was hanging out at Crescent Hill Library I noticed that they had two copies, so I figured it was stalking me and I opened it up to have a look.  Didn't take long for me to decide I needed to keep on reading, so I checked it out.  I'm 317 (of 657) pages in as of this morning, and I have to say that this is one superb hunk of writing.  Reif throws off ideas / images in a few words that I would have spent pages dwelling on . . . which means that the book is just bursting with imaginative swells.  It's pretty stunning, actually.  

I also became aware of the fact that I actually bought (but never read) Reif's first book--

--

for which he was purportedly given a one million dollar advance.  (Holy shit!)  I remember seeing this book at Carmichael's and thinking that it was supercool and buying it, then seeing it a few days later at Half-Price for a buck or two.  I will mos def have to find out where I put it and give it a read once I've finished I Am Radar.  And oh--ut ut!--I just saw that there was a movie based on that first book:  The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013).  The trailer looks pretty cool

&

but it looks like it's not available on Netflix or Amazon Instant, and it's a little pricy to buy ($23 is the cheapest I've seen so far), so that might not happen.  

But this Reif fellow is super okay.  And he's an American, too!