As usual, looking for a good comp for The Song of Songs. At first I was excited, because it was a road trip and the protagonist was a 60+ year-old guy, and there was a whiff of magical realism with a sentient cat and a few other things, and it’s funny. But. But it’s not at all like my manuscript (that’s what I’m to call it in query letters because “novel” is too presumptious maybe?) . Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is still better. But I need a second. I could use this in a pinch, I suppose.

There is the similarity of the first chapter and the last, which really has nothing to do with the story so much, but it starts and ends with a cat, so, that’s cool. I loved the main character/PJ’s daughter, Sophie, best, and the Irish twins next, especially Luna, the precocious, pissed off 11yo (I think–it wasn’t the last book I read). PJ always left me a little wanting, persistently failing to meet expectations until the VERY end, so his character arc was mostly flat, with mild positive movement just past the middle and then going parabolic in the last ten pages, or was it five?

My favorite thing about it were the surprises revealed, the endless humor, and how it started. It had me from the beginning. The sex, not that it was racy (at all) was so casual as to almost be like scratching an itch, which I suppose it is for some people, mentioned mostly as an oh, by the way, PJ had sex with the hotel manager, but we never knew what kind of sex, like Sophie in the back of the van with a fry cook after she finished a seven mile run. Yummy.

So, this doesn’t work because the sex isn’t treated like the best thing since sliced bread, which is pretty much all there is when you’re 17, and a virgin, and it’s all you can think of.

Bummer. Not the book. I loved it. Bummer it’s not a good comp.