My Book Review: Boy versus Self by Harmon Cooper

Boy versus Self

Author: Harmon Cooper

Book Description:

From the author of the Feedback Loop series comes a powerful journey into the mind of an Austin artist struggling with violent hallucinations. There are moments when a creation pushes its creator to the brink of their imagination, to the fine line between true ingenuity and blistering insanity. With his art career taking off, can Boy possibly overcome the darkness within? Will he reconcile with his mother, his sister, his demons? A serrated story that runs from Texas to Mexico, New York to Tokyo, BOY versus SELF is a psychological coming of age novel full of suspense, horror, struggle and ultimately, triumph.

My Review and Thoughts:

As the great Inspector Gadget would say: “Wowsers!”

First off, I was contacted by the author to give an honest review. Sometimes I really am not enthused by this idea, because I hate giving bad reviews. Thankfully that is not the case with Boy versus Self. I have become a new instant fan of Harmon Cooper. This is a unique, different and absolutely brilliant story of imaginative writing. Cooper knows how to grab you, hold you and never let you go, through his fresh, original, and artful word play on each page.

I must be honest, I had never read anything by Mr. Cooper, but now that I read this one, it’s a shame that I had not discovered him before. He has a deep understanding of characters, and he gives those characters their own deep understanding. I think this is one of the oddest character weaved stories I have read in a long time. The situations, and those characters that are vividly displayed on page, become a reality in their own ways. These unique and odd characters become a part of you, and you find yourself thinking that they are real. The writing is so well displayed through imaginative means, that you as the reader can’t help but believe what is happening, or at least, you wish to turn the page to find out what happens next.

I have been discovering, or at least contacted lately by a lot of unique writers. Some of these writers end up reminding me of writing legends, yet they themselves are totally new, fresh and original. Cooper can express his unique visionary creation, not in just word play, but he gives it a sense of reality that makes you understand, or become a part of those characters, as if they are real.

I think Cooper has a natural talent in allowing his characters to breath as real people. The best way I can describe Cooper’s writing is a splash of Chuck Palahniuk, mixed with Kurt Vonnegut and a whole new realm of truly original reality that only Cooper has in creating his world, personas and his personal reality on page.

The character of BOY creates an excitement inside my book loving reality, and in away BOY makes me think of one of my favorite characters of all time, Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye. The character of BOY has that ability to be remembered as a unique, one of a kind character. That is what makes this book stand out above and beyond a lot of books.

I found this to be an awesome journey. Fresh, new, unique and truly, a one of a kind stories that transcends off the page. This story begs to be read. The story begs to be remembered. A trip into an emotional disturbing experience. A psychological mind trip. A character driven mastery laced with a strychnine of word play that only Harmon Cooper could fathom.

Truly a reading experience that I will not forget.

My Rating: 4 out of 5