WILL@epicqwest.com: A Medicated Memoir Review

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(More customer reviews)"Quirky" and "edgy" are hard things to write. And in Tom Grimes's funny, smart novel "WILL@epicqwest.com," the edgy and smart are very much present. Only here, they're mixed with chemically-augmented satire -- an intoxicating mix.
Will is the 21st-century lost-long twin of Holden Caulfield: a depressed loser college student with a weird family, who also has enough medication in his body to open his own pharmacy. He's wrapped up in his own bizarre thoughts and lets schoolwork go to the wayside. Oh yes -- he has a quest to go on (get it? epicqwest.com?).
I.S. (Information Sickness) is "a virus that makes people think, and occasionally laugh, too much," and kills them when it overloads their minds. Our anti-hero is out to stop the malevolent Dr. Bones and his sexy henchwoman, and save everyone from overload and imminent death. To save humankind (or something like that, Will joins forces with his talkative computer Spunk to stop Dr. Bones before it's too late.
"Wacky" is not usually a good word to associate with a satirical novel. But "WILL@epicqwest.com" has a certain sense of wackiness that keeps it from being heavy-handed. Grimes takes pokes at postmodern civilization: at sex, philosophy, computers, love, parents, capitalism, learning and drugs to keep us happy -- and it's all through the jaded eyes of a heavily medicated college student. It's either hysterically funny, or insanely scary.
Most cool genre-bending authors trip over their own efforts to be edgy and cool. Grimes doesn't. While peppering the story with pop culture references, he excels in his writing -- at some times it seems like a straighforward first-person story. At other times, all those drugs in Will's system twist his viewpoint a little bit. The dialogue is amazing, especially during scenes where the characters are having major "moments" ("I loved you even before I saw you airbrushed onto a haystack"). Even the chapter titles are called things like "Part Two, Chapter Two: In Which I Sate the Reader's Need for Narrative Drive, or Suffer the Wrath of the Marketplace."
Anti-hero Will is a witty, strange protagonist with unusual priorities. It's hard to summarize a guy whose brain takes up an entire book, and seems to spill over the edges. He's weird, and it works. And Spunk, the Pancho to Will's Don Quixote, is what makes the quest a winner, with his constant opinions and input. (Think C3-PO, but much less subserviant)
Sardonic and edgy, this is a must-read (especially for cynical students). Tom Grimes' wry fourth novel "WILL@epicqwest.com" is a hyperactive satire with a manic edge. Better than Prozac.

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In vividly compressed comic form, WILL@EPICQWEST.COM follows the post modern exploits of a hero, Will, a medicated college student, on his heroic quest to uncover the truth behind a new virus that threatens to wipe-out all of humanity: IS (Information Sickness).

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