Ascending the Boneyard/The Absoluteness of Nothing by C.G. Watson

⭐️

Synopsis

Caleb Tosh has suffered one personal trauma too many, but this last one—the sudden departure of his mom—has pushed him down a dark and disorienting path. His favorite video-game, Boneyard, becomes his go-to coping mechanism, and Tosh gladly gets lost in the maps of the game rather than move through the landscape of his own grief. As Tosh falls farther and farther down the rabbit hole of abandonment and loneliness, he doesn’t see there are others fighting both virtual and real-life battles alongside him.

I’m Sorry But…

This BOOK needs to be thrown in the boneyard… haha. But for reals. This is only the second book in my whole life that I’ve had to slap a DNF label on. First book of the year and hopefully the only one that sucks this bad. 

What Was Wrong?

The dialogue was dry. The characters didn’t really have any substance. The plots and sub-plots seemed dull and hastily thrown together. This book was a huge mess. I didn't even get a chance to get to half of it before I lost interest. 

This book was weird. I don’t mean good weird, either. It was just a hodge podge of random scenes and thoughts. I couldn’t tell the virtual world between the real world. I don’t know if the author meant to create this air of confusion, but confuse me is what it did. 

From the very beginning of the book we were thrust into Tosh’s life with little explanation of what was actually going on even later on in the book. At some points I was unsure whether his little brother was an actual baby or just a disabled kid. I also didn’t even understand the game he was playing, which is a little frustrating considering the fact that the premise of the book was centered around this game by the name of The Boneyard. Can I get some game rules or a game goal? Anything. 

I felt like Tosh was just scurrying around from point A to point B, which is ironic because their literally was no point to all his scurrying. There were things that never made sense or never added up. 

To Make Matters Worse

I accidentally bought this book twice with different titles. Possibly a scheme to get more purchases because the story itself wasn’t a good seller? I think yes. So now I’m stuck with two books that are exactly the same amount of sucky. 

I did like the use of word play. And despite all the madness going on, Watson managed to keep a steady flow of internal dialogue and an air of wittiness which is the only thing I found refreshing during this read. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to save this book from the boneyard…