Nirvana by J.R. Stewart: Bliss or Bust?

Nirvana  is the first book of a new series by J.R. Stewart. It tells the tale of a very annoying "animal activist/punk rocker" named Larissa Kenders. Larissa goes by the name of Kenders, because she has some negative weirdness about her first name and well, she's just too much the badass activist /rocker to have an ordinary name. Her brilliant scientist significant other; Andrew,  has discovered something dreadful about this dystopian world in which they live, and has disappeared. Everyone thinks that Andrew is dead, but Kenders can communicate with him in a virtual world call Nirvana.

Aaaand....that's all I want to say about the plot. In many ways the novel is a typical dystopian novel, which I  frequently enjoy. Unfortunately, I  have to actually like somebody in the book to get behind it. And I've gotta say...this book is filled with very unlikable characters. Kenders is just irritating. All the animal activism....without thought for the outcome. "Hey...lets release all the minks from the mink farm! Aren't we brave and intrepid souls? Aren't we the only noble ones in the world who are saving these animals from death? Aren't we just WONDERFUL!" Ok...yeah. They saved the minks from becoming coats. I get that. And no, I don't wear fur, because its not my thing. But I'm betting that all those minks suddenly released into the wild after being fed their whole lives either starved to death or were eaten by predators. And the employees of the farm are now unemployed and can't feed their families. But yeah...you're a brave and intrepid activist, with a poetic soul that society just doesn't get. Blech...

 And don't yell at me. Of course I don't support mink farms, or testing lipstick on animals. But I'm not an idiot and I know you can't just release a captive animal into the wild and they will magically know how to survive.  And since I'm sure I'm the beneficiary of animal drug testing..*see previous cancer posts*, I have to come down on the side of testing for drugs. I like being alive and I may be a mean old woman, but if some critters made that possible, I'm grateful to them and appreciate their sacrifice. And don't get me started on the "misunderstood punk rocker with the soul of a poet that the world (and my mother) doesn't understand". Double Blech.

I was actually going to give up on this book at my 50 page rule, but it was an ebook with locations, not pages. I looked up the page count and was doing the math to determine the equivalent page to location, so I would know how far I had to go. My son walked by and inquired what I was up to. I explained...he said, "Don't be a pussy...it's 135 pages....read all of it...". Sigh...so I read the whole thing. The WHOLE THING. Damned kids. Okay, so I skimmed a bunch of it.  Read parts of it very quickly. Very. Quickly. But I finished it. So there.

Nirvana will be available on November 10th at your favorite bookstore. But...meh....not my thing....

(Review copy provided by the publisher, Blue Moon Publishers, via Net Galley. The opinions provided by yours truly.)

My rating: 

I’m sure lots of other people liked it.