Everything Matters! by Ron Currie Jr.

The review of this book that I read said something like “this book is good enough to forgive the exclamation point in the title” (I’m paraphrasing here, but I don’t remember where this review was published). I’m inclined to agree. I don’t know if I would have thought much about the punctuation if it hadn’t been pointed out, but I agree that it was an insightful and engaging book.

The book is about Junior Thibodeau, who hears voices starting when he is a fetus. Among other things, the voices tell Junior that the world is going to end when it collides with a comet when he is 36 years old. Knowing this, Junior frequently wonders whether anything he does will really matter. Of course, if you read the title of the book, you’ll get a general idea of where Currie is going with the story.

Of course, any human could apply this dark outlook to life. We know that the world will end someday; we know that we will all die someday, and we know that everyone else that we know will also die. Why is it remarkable that Junior asks himself about the meaning of life, if all people could potentially ask themselves the same questions? Most people are far enough removed from the eventual apocalypse that it doesn’t really occupy much of their time (and those who constantly think about it are a subject of concern in the mental health field). Junior is not so lucky, he knows that the world will end in the relatively near future, and a voice is available to remind him regularly.

I can usually measure the success of a book by how emotionally involved I feel with the characters, if it makes me cry, that’s even better. Some of the instances of drug abuse and neglect that take place during the childhoods of Junior and his brother, Rodney make me feel a little sick to my stomach. This is one of my markers of good storytelling. Currie succeeds in creating a group of characters that I love because of all their flaws and prejudices and anger.

Mostly due to speculations about a possible apocalypse in the year 2012, the end of the world is getting a lot of attention right now. Hopefully, this won’t affect your decision to read this book one way or the other, as it is not related to these speculations. It’s really just a good book about the ways that your decisions and relationships can either improve or destroy your life.