The Last Book in the Universe is a book by Rodman Philbrick. Originally adapted from a short story by the same name, and by the same author, this book describes a hopeless post-apocalyptic wasteland and how the inhabitants survive.
PLOT SYNOPSIS: A young man with epilepsy goes on a large journey with newly found friends to see his sick sister. Problems arise because of an egotistical race of people and their lust to keep all other people stupid and happy, and one of the young man's friends is killed because of it.
Grant's Thoughts: Good god, where do I begin here? The plot is very drawn out and seems to contain padding so that it isn't considered TOO short. Sometimes new introductions to the plot are very abrupt and make no sense, there are way to many digressions by these new introductions, and this ends up making the main theme of the book too convoluted for me to understand.
CHARACTERS:
SPAZ: A young man with epilepsy, and the main protagonist/narrator. He works for a gang called "The Bully Bangers", but the only job he is shown doing is going down to run down storage lockers in order to loot the unfortunate inhabitants. Because of his epilepsy, he cannot indulge in "mind probing" a mixture between virtual reality video games and addictive drugs. This also makes him an outcast to everyone he has ever known.
BILLY BIZMO: Arguably a protagonist, Billy Bizmo is the leader of The Bully Bangers, and is also Spaz's father. As the boss of the gang, he indulges in many luxuries, including mind probing. He denies Spaz permission to cross latches and aid his dying sister, which triggers Spaz to go see Ryter and start his own journey.
RYTER: A frail old man that holds the "last book in the universe". He serves as Spaz's guide around the latches, while also providing support to several supporting characters that need it. In the end, he is "wheeled" to death.(AKA: Dragged behind motorized vehicles until his body falls apart.) Before his death though, he passes on the title of the last book in the universe, as well as his own name, to Spaz.
BEAN: Spaz's foster sister, who also suffers from a blood disease known as Leukemia. She has her father send for Spaz, but soon falls into a coma after Spaz arrives. She is taken to a special city called "Eden", where superior genes are spliced into her, curing her disease.
LANAYA: A member of the genetically superior race, known as the "Proovs". Specifically, she is meant to be a "Master", someone who makes laws and rules Eden. She is shown going into the normal area, known as the "Urb", to provide for the less unfortunate people, mostly because it's considered taboo by other Proovs. She is shown to be very stuck up at first, but ends up growing to like and care for the poor inhabitants of the Urb, as well as being outraged at the Proovs for introducing Mind Probes to keep the normal people stupid and happy.
LITTLE FACE: A feral child who lives in a set of old storage lockers, he does not know how to speak like a human, as no parents were around to teach him. His first word is "Chox", as Spaz gives him a chocolate bar in order to find Ryter. He is taken in by Lanaya's mother "Contributor" so that she may raise a new child. In the end, it is shown that he is learning more and more each day.
Grant's Thoughts: I personally feel that these characters are quite boring and have no real endearing qualities. They all barely get any development and the twist with Billy Bizmo being Spaz's father was really weak and really seems to exist only to give explanation for why Billy made everyone treat Spaz better once he was inducted into the gang.
SETTING: The distant future, after a devastating Earthquake. The resulting carnage from this earthquake is nothing short of a nuclear disaster, as there are areas that are described as being radioactive and uninhabitable in the book. The world of the Urb is barren and full of the dead, contrasted by Eden, which is like a small circle of life that was untouched by the disaster. These are separated by a large, possibly radioactive area known as "the zone" or "the forbidden zone"
Grant's Thoughts: This is where the book really shines. I find that it describes the world quite well, and the bleak imagery really helps me forget about the uninteresting characters and plot digressions. Just the way some of the areas are described make me feel like I'm really there.
THEME: The theme of the book can be all over the place. It can range anywhere from "Prepare now for the future, before it's too late." to "Technology can be the downfall of man" to even "Curses can sometimes be a gift.".
Grant's Thoughts: The only reason I have trouble understanding the theme is because the plot is also all over the place. It's linear, yes, but it should be one straight line to get to the destination with maybe one or two digressions, not "We're suddenly angry at you even though you showed up here before, possibly many times before, to rob someone.", or "Oh, I want to wage war on another gang, but I don't know where this particular gang is. Instead of just going out and doing it myself, I'll just trust this group of people I don't really know that has suddenly shown up to lead me to them! It's like the author started drinking heavily about halfway through a good chapter and said "You know what this needs? A good side plot to flesh out the science and technology more" Except he passed out before he could write anything decent, and in his hungover state the next morning, he typed out a bunch of junk to finish the chapter. For example, the characters constantly refer to mind probing as dangerous and addictive, but it's all really vague in how it's described. Since the main character can't use them, it never really explains what it's like to be in one or even how they really work other than a needle that's inserted into your skull. This is what makes the theme of the book so difficult to pinpoint and follow.
FINAL THOUGHTS: Despite all of its downsides and annoyances, The Last Book in the Universe is interesting nonetheless. If you really want to read a trimmed down version of the story that sort of keeps the main idea in there, the book has the original short story it was based off of in the back.
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