Customer Reviews

Nearly Roadkill (High Risk)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Great characters, inventive plot, excellent storyline, good writing, so much fun to read, and a lot of hot sex to boot. What could be bad?

Nearly Roadkill, by Caitlin Sullivan and Kate Bornstein, attempts to explore issues of gender and how that affects perception and expectation. Told mostly from the point of view of a teenage boy named Toobe, it follows the story of two genderless web users, Scratch and Winc, who keep meeting up in various chat rooms. The freedom of the online environment allows them to explore what gender is and how it affects their relationship. One night they might be a boy and a girl, the next two women, the night after that a vampire and a young woman.
The book succeeds in exploring the themes of gender and how everyone is affected by it, as well as how perceptions can change based on one's gender. The story, however, is almost nonexistent, with a too perfect ending. By revealing Scatch and Winc's genders, the point of gender exploration is somewhat negated. To make matters worse, the font is nearly impossible to read and there are too many graphic cyber sex exchanges, which detract from the book's message.
If you are looking for a study in gender roles, this book will serve your purpose. However, if you are looking for a book with a storyline and well-developed believable characters, Nearly Roadkill is not the book for you.

I have always been a fan of Kate Bornstein and her nonfiction work, plus I'm always searching for genderqueer fiction, so this was a gem to find. Indeed, it is an interesting, engaging read, and I reccommend everyone read it. But that's not to say there aren't drawbacks:

-The title bothers me; even now I remember that great book I read- what was it called? 'Nearly Roadkill' doesn't sum up the book in any way except perhaps abstractly, and, to my recollection, wasn't mentioned in the book as a phrase or something clever like that. The term 'Infobahn' was odd, too.

-The book is just a little long. It may seem longer because of the format, or because of the storyline (several times you think it should be over; it keeps going), but it does tend to drag in places. That's not to say that I ever wanted to put it down, in fact, I was avidly reading near the end to find how things worked out, but some brevity, some smashing down of things, could have been better.

-A few plot holes. There aren't many big ones, but a few things irked me. The whole book long I was expecting them to be cleverly explained, but they never were! For instance- Jabba writes narrative accounts of what's going on with Lt. Budge, very welcome reliefs from all the cybertalk, and letting us know what's going on with him. But how is this achieved? Is Jabba spying on him and guessing at his inner thoughts? It's never said. Everything else is meticulously explained as Toobe's diary entry, etc., etc., but not that. Jabba's friend and aid, Gwyn, is a "cyber witch", but that never really gets explained. It makes her a very interesting character, for sure, but was the witch aspect necessary? I don't know that I can say. Jabba was a well-drawn character and I liked the fact that the end explained hir life, although it was vague. Was the tie between Jabba and Toobe too precious to be believed? Again, I liked it, but I can see where others would be put-off.

-Lastly- it ended happily, sweetly. Very nice- EXCEPT- what happens to Winc and Scratch in the end???? They run off to hiding and cooperation. Are we expected to believe that the government would just suddenly drop all charges and give up? People know what Winc looks like! Their identities have been compromised, so how will they deal with that? We're never told.

Besides those, I adored this novel. Other people's complaints just weren't big for me: the sex scenes were necessary and lovely, the use of "ze" and "hir" were of utmost importance and didn't distract, and the type and format didn't bother me (if anything, I think it's amazing when people can pull off entire books of cyberchat). It's a beautiful love story, a message about gender, and a warning about government and civil rights. Did it negate the gender lesson by revealing Scratch and Winc's genders? I would certainly say not, because 1) it comes so early in the novel that it's not the main focus, and 2) what genders? What was revealed, except for Winc's past? To say that their gender was disclosed is to show you have certain beliefs about gender. Both admit that they gender-blend, and I love the fact that after they've seen one another physically, they still use gender-neutral pronouns and terms and acknowledge the girl and boy within each of them. It can sometimes seem that the gender stuff goes on, but it is sincerely melded with the plot, rather than separate from it. Knowing Kate Bornstein, I can say that Winc is, essentially, Kate, and describes all of the problems she encountered in her own life and with her own transition and subsequent gender outlaw behavior. The way Scratch and Winc discuss gender is as a fetish, an exploration of themselves, and- after they meet- a way to try to deal with it. It's just great stuff.

And if you take nothing more from it, you'll probably be inspired to get online and try out some new personalities for the pure fun of it. Scrach and Winc make it seem so gloriously fun and easy! Take it from me- this is a delightfully innovative read. Take a chance on it.

Nearly Roadkill, by Caitlin Sullivan and Kate Bornstein, attempts to explore issues of gender and how that affects perception and expectation. Told mostly from the point of view of a teenage boy named Toobe, it follows the story of two genderless web users, Scratch and Winc, who keep meeting up in various chat rooms. The freedom of the online environment allows them to explore what gender is and how it affects their relationship. One night they might be a boy and a girl, the next two women, the night after that a vampire and a young woman.
The book succeeds in exploring the themes of gender and how everyone is affected by it, as well as how perceptions can change based on one's gender. The story, however, is almost nonexistent, with a too perfect ending. By revealing Scatch and Winc's genders, the point of gender exploration is somewhat negated. To make matters worse, the font is nearly impossible to read and there are too many graphic cyber sex exchanges, which detract from the book's message.
If you are looking for a study in gender roles, this book will serve your purpose. However, if you are looking for a book with a storyline and well-developed believable characters, Nearly Roadkill is not the book for you.

Scratch and Winc capture the best of all arenas in their sexual exploits, moving from boy, to grrrl, to vampire, to punk, etc...living in freedom over the internet that makes me cringe at the banality of my own life. The prospect of regulation in this final frontier is abominable, if not unavoidable, and the social commentary this book evokes is relevant. I read this book and surfed the web a *new* person, using my newfound creativity to have tons of fun! Jabbathehut & Gwynyth are great players in this game as well, adding a sense that we're not alone in this fight...just read it!

Life and art, art and life, the perennial question what came first. In my case, the novel. Nearly Roadkill: An Infobahn Erotic Adventure by Caitlin Sullivan and her cohort Kate Bornstein began as an online discussion of gender in cyberspace, by two provocative souls whose battle to define male and female, I imagine, continues. I followed it in the novel with interest, rooting for the characters to reach an understanding. Though the gender issue seems to be the prominent one in Nearly Roadkill, I was just as intrigued by its presentation of the online world in light of the predictions for ubiquitous intervention by corporations and government (For further discussion on this aspect, visit http://www.new-kewl.com/lollygag/blow.html) Fictional protagonists Scratch and Winc become martyrs to the cause of corporate avarice by refusing to undertake Registration, a process of answering demographic and lifestyle questions to build a user profile. Registration is a mandated by the government, in order for corporations to best target email advertisements to ostensibly ready and willing recipients. Needless to say, Scratch and Winc's resistance becomes the catalyst for people online everywhere to rebuke their previous co-operation with the scheme. A riot, a rally, a complete shutdown of the Internet ensues, while our heroes limp into the underground, bewildered that their personal agenda became a worldwide cause sufficient to change the way government and big business freely exploit the personal tastes of the worldwide populace for their own commercial gain. A terrific read on many levels (though a bit of an edit on mid-book dialogue would be welcome), it will be interesting to see if or how this novel foreshadows the future!

"Nearly Roadkill" is a novel with an interesting premise, but an extremely flawed execution.

The story can be summarized as a virtual (in the computer sense) "Thelma and Louise" with gender bending.

I liked the story's sad depiction of luser addiction to digital culture. The story should have been subtitled: "Escape from the Meat-World". The erotic passages are not too shabby either.

While the premise of the story was good, the execution of the story was horribly flawed. The artifice of using a Courier font to represent computer output is well known. The authors' thought to chronicle 80% the buddies' info-highway roadtrip in the context of e-mails and chat logs. The end result was more like reading a screenplay than a novel. Boring. In addition, the mechanical readability of the novel was degraded by printing its 400-odd pages in a Sans Serif font. It is tough on the eyes, over long periods.

In addition to being physically difficult to read, the story suffered from long didactics on gender, an inept use of gender-less pronouns ("hir" and "ze"), an uneven application of computer lore, and a really trite ending.

This book has a few interesting points. However, it takes way too much work to find them.

Well, pretty boring, all in all. Politically correct mixed sexuality (yawn)... different typefaces (yawn)... lots of yak yak yak. About the only interesting thing is that it is somewhat different from the normal run of... well, abnormal whatevers. Should we be intrigued, at this point, by gender flexibility? Hey, why not... although that was a lot more radical when S. Delany did it in Trouble on Triton, a loooong time ago....