Anywhere but Here (Oltion)

Anywhere But Here

by Jerry Oltion

I remember the first time I started reading a book and then just couldn’t make myself finish it– I was in fourth grade. It seemed sacreligious to start a book but not finish it, but the book in question (whose title I mercifully forget) was just too bad to keep reading. So with Oltion’s Anywhere but Here, a not-very-thinly disguised attack on The Evil American Empire and That Idiot In the White House. Oltion’s characters are amiable enough, but despite the effort he takes to portray them as (somewhat bumptious) ordinary home folks, they come off as sock puppets. The initial third of the book is sloppily paced and just flat not very interesting. Perhaps the rest of the book’s better; I wouldn’t know because that’s the point where I abandoned it. Very disappointing.