Customer Reviews

NoVA: A Novel

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I bought this book the day it came out as I had been looking forward to it ever since I read Boice's first novel MVP, which despite its theme of professional basketball, was just too good to be true. If you liked MVP, you will love NoVa. If MVP was not to your taste, you will probably not like NoVa either.

NoVa takes place in a Northern Virgina subdivision in November 1998. The book opens with the suicide of a teenager from the subdivision and goes off from there about the family, friends, neighbors, classmates, etc. of the suicide victim. This all sounds like a common plot and deriative but there is nothing to compare this book to. Boice has a rare talent and manages to give each character (and there are many) a distinctive and unique voice. In addition to feeling like you know these people, you are made aware of every weird idea, dark thought and secret longing. There is Amy's husband who yearns for a terrorist attack because only then would he feel alive (he only has to wait another three years); there is Tim who organizes a car pool to D.C. and requires each rider to once a week bring vegetables and dip for the morning ride; there are Ed and Mitzy, the obsessive liberals scorned by the flaming right-winger John Donald. Everyone is sort of horrible and they are your neighbors.

I have not yet finished this book so I don't know what else awaits me but I know it will be unlike anything I have read before. I love this author.

OK, the opening description of the recently hanged Grayson sucks the reader in, but the rest of the novel just wears him/her out.

In summary, all the mothers in suburban developments have weird personality disorders. All the fathers drink to excess, screw around continuously, and are addicted to porn. All the kids over the age of 10 are stoned and screwing around basically all the time. No one in Northern Virginia has any redeeming qualities whatsoever. No one.

Although I can recognize the self-righteous teenaged angst of the suicide, I still don't have a clue why he decided killing himself was such a great idea.

A depressingly unsatisfying read overall.

As someone who has lived in NoVA for the last twenty years, I can say that the physical description of the area is spot on, and I even admit that the geography of the region distorts the lives of those who live here, often not in a positive way. That said, every character in this book without exception is twisted. If you prefer to believe that everyone you know is disturbed, this book is for you.