Kiss Me, Stranger, by Rob Tanner

No name is ever given for the country in which she resides, nor is her name ever revealed,  but the narrator of this story talks about her life as a mother and wife in a time when it seems the world is going to end.  Turmoil is the state in which they live.  Her husband and son have gone off to fight, but who knows which side they are fighting for, or which side is the right side.  Will this family ever feel normal again?

I have never been one to read much, ok, any, dystopian fiction, so I am not sure if this book is representative of the genre.  What I am sure of is that this book is totally bizarre, and in my opinion defies most rules of writing.  The setting is never really set, the characters are never really developed, and the plot only sort of exists.

The book is described as an illustrated novel, and I find this to be a grave misnomer.  The illustrations look like childish scribbles, and do not really add anything to the experience of the book.  It reads more like a stream of consciousness exercise than an actual novel, though there is at least some resolution at the end of the book.

I think maybe I just did not "get" this book, because it has a lot of great reviews out there.  But to me, it seemed as if this book was just trying too hard to be bold and artistic, to make a statement.  The only statement I got from this book was "you get what you pay for", since I got it as a free download.


This book is from my personal library.