Rant Review

Plot: 

Buster  "Rant" Casey was born in the rural town of Middleton, the son of Chester and Irene Casey, at birth he was gifted with a sense of smell and taste far more advanced than any other human.

Rant becomes obsessed with getting bitten by rabid animals along with venomous snakes and spiders. After getting bitten by several highly toxic spiders Rant discoverd that their bites came with an unusual physical side effect. He uses this to get out of school and eventually threatens his way to an early diploma. It isn't until Rant arrives in the city that it becomes clear that the novel takes place in a future where urban dwellers are forcefully divided by curfew into two separate classes: the respectable Daytimers and the oppressed Nighttimers.

Rant becomes a Nighttimer and finds himself swept up in the Nighttimer lifestyle that mostly revolves around Party Crashing, a covert game played out on city streets at night. The object of the game is to crash, not too forcefully, into other players. As Rant becomes increasingly involved in Party Crashing he meets Echo Lawrence, a fellow crasher and the girl with whom he falls in love. Together they start a nationwide rabies epidemic that eventually erupts into zombie-invasion-like proportions that calls for those infected with rabies to be shot and killed on sight.

Rant eventually dies during a Party Crashing event. His death is viewed and listend to by millions on national television and the "Graphic Traffic" radio show. However, when the car is pried open, his body is somehow missing. After his "death" in the novel, many interviewees share their speculations about Rant's strange fate and its implications for society along with the rabies outbreak.

Some interviewees  speculate that crashing a car while in a given state of mind, will jar a person outside of time. Once this is accomplished, they can then go back and kill off all of their ancestors, in turn, making them immortal. Or they can, through incest, make themself into something more than human. Rant's friends believe that he has gone back in time to stop Green Taylor Simms, a previous time-travelling incarnation of himself, from raping his mother. Rant fails, and opts to change his name to Chester before he weds his mother and helps raise himself.

MY Take:

This book is constantly changing and surprising. it is a difficult book to summarize due to the diverse nature of its contents. It is also written ina manner which xome people may find difficult to follow. Nothing in the story is made clear right off the bat. The reader is forced to experience a lack of understanding untill the story slowly comes together. While it may take a second reading to really understand all the details of the story, it offers a rather interesting view of societies, individual psyche and views relating to disease, death, family and time travel.

I think this is a book that is well worth the wait. However, if you are someone who likes clear, straight-to-the-point literature, this is not for you!!