Alex himself is growing and rising to the task that Peterson puts him to - it’s a very remarkable literary journey. What a sweet book. It's about a boy from a small town in England who is odd and a loner, but also very smart and likeable. He rather reminds me of the autistic kid in Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend - or the main character of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - but more social and less autistic - but he seems like he's on the spectrum or at least a kid with some quirks. Toward the middle of the book, I start seeing similarities to John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. BTW, if you have not read any of the three books I just mentioned, add them to your pile as they are 4-5 star books. When a book opens with a seventeen year old protagonist beings stopped at Dover customs in the middle of what seems to be a nervous breakdown, with a large bag of marijuana and an urn full of ashes on the passenger seat, you know there’s going to be some pretty interesting explanations coming up. I really liked Alex’s mum - it was really refreshing to read about a single parent and someone who lives a very alternative lifestyle (she is a clairvoyant and owns a tarot card shop) who isn’t a flake or dropout. Mr Peterson was superb, as was Alex’s friendship with Ellie, the foul-mouthed girl in the year above. Lccn 2012277741 Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-alpha-20201231-10-g1236 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA15317 Openlibrary_edition

Alex becomes friends with the 'odd' Mr Peterson after running into his garden to escape bullies, but their relationship soon grows, even including an obscure book group which Alex holds in his house named "THE SECULAR CHURCH OF KURT VONNEGUT". This in itself is another good quality of the novel, as it encourages the reader to read his books, as well as being interesting due to the science fiction elements discussed.

The other characters (except for the bullies) are also easy to care about. I also liked that it incorporated Kurt Vonnegut and how fitting his novels are to Alex and Mr Peterson's lives. And of course, the classical music. If a book makes you want to learn more about stuff, and makes you want to go read all of Kurt Vonnegut's books, then it can't be all bad.

stars A book that lingers, and made me want to start at the beginning again. A well-written debut book and a worthy read. Vielleicht startet genau dann endlich die Geschichte rund um ein sehr wichtiges und interessantes Thema (ich spoiler hier nicht, habe mich aber aktiv spoilern lassen), doch ich hatte einfach keinen Nerv mehr auf Alex. Das ist schade, denn Mr. Peterson hätte ich gern näher kennengelernt. The storyline itself has many strands. It’s about the difficulty of social acceptance, coming of age, friendships, the right to die, all of which are dealt with sensitively and thought-provokingly, but also with humour and the ending was one of the most moving I’ve ever read. Od první chvíle jsem si uvědomoval, že po dočtení té knihy mi bude smutno. Je to další z knih, u kterých víte, jak dopadne. Příběh tedy není o tom, co se stane, ale jak se to stane. Meteorit, který zasáhne Alexe Woodse a dílem této nehody dostane epilepsii je spouštěč řady více či méně bizarních událostí. Alex Woods se začne zajímat o neurologii a astrofyziku (aby ne, když na vás sletí meteorit a praští do hlavy) a brzy se seznámí s panem Petersonem, válečným veteránem a podivínem. Spřátelí se a Alex se pro něj brzy stane nejbližším člověkem. Jejich přátelství Alexovi přináší nová témata, nad kterými musí přemýšlet a musí je řešit. Vesmír versus Alex Woods je kniha o dospívání, takže vám určitě připomene slavnější knihy na podobné téma. Jedním z témat knihy je eutanazie a tady musím zvednout obočí. Nedávno jsem viděl dokument Terryho Pratchetta "Choose to die" a je evidentní, že Gavin Extence od Pratchetta opisoval. Některé motivy z dokumentu zazní v knize, nicméně celkové vyznění této části knihy je opačné, než u Pratchetta (konkrétnější být nechci). Je to trochu škoda, protože Extence si mohl dát tu práci a do příběhu zakomponovat polemiku, kterou v dokumentu dost sugestivně začal Terry Pratchett. To je vlastně má jediná výtka vůči knize – že téma asistované sebevraždy je zde podáno příliš povrchně. In English author Gavin Extence’s debut novel, The Universe Versus Alex Woods, the titular teenage protagonist embarks on a geeky and surreal journey after forging an unlikely friendship with a marijuana-addled Vietnam veteran. Many critics have compared the book to the works of Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Haddon.

Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-08-09 13:01:00 Boxid IA40203204 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier A tale of an unexpected friendship, an unlikely hero and an improbable journey...This novel might just strike you as one of the funniest, most heartbreaking novels you've ever read. This is the story of seventeen-year-old Alex Woods - born to a clairvoyant mother and a phantom father, victim of an improbable childhood accident - who is stopped at Dover customs in possession of 113 grams of marijuana and the ashes of his best friend, Vietnam veteran Isaac Peterson. What follows is a highly original and compelling account of Alex's life and the strange series of events that brought him here.” The Story: Alex Woods knows that he hasn't had the most conventional start in life. He knows that growing up with a clairvoyant single mother won't endear him to the local bullies. He also knows that even the most improbable events can happen - he's got the scars to prove it. What he doesn't know yet is that when he meets ill-tempered, reclusive widower Mr Peterson, he'll make an unlikely friend. Someone who tells him that you only get one shot at life. That you have to make the best possible choices.

Well, of course, it's going to appeal to my sensitivities. It's bound to tug at anyone's heartstrings. It is the story of an unlikely friendship, that's definitely true, and it's a beautiful story from my point of view. It's fairly apparent from the first chapter, to me, what exactly is going on here: what matters is how we get there, and how much less funny/quirky it seems by the end, and how much more sad and true and beautiful. But if you don't want to know, don't read any further in this review. But the novel won me over. Extence tells a great story that owes much to Vonnegut, but also something to Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. It's hard not to see an echo of Harry Potter, too, in the boy-hero with a scar on his head. The final section is humane and touching, and Extence deserves credit for the clever and timely idea of fictionalising a trip to the Swiss death clinic. The primary moral prism through which Woods views his current dilemma is the writing of his favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut. Woods starts a Vonnegut fan club for people interested in “morality, ecology, time travel, extraterrestrial life, twentieth-century history, humanism, humor, et cetera,” after reading Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions. He calls it, "The Secular Church of Kurt Vonnegut." A bittersweet, cross-audience charmer, this debut novel will appeal to guys, YA readers, and Vonnegut and coming-of-age fiction fans." - Library JournalForced to stay off school until his fits can be controlled by a mixture of meditation and medication, he reads Tolkien, conducts a charming correspondence with a meteor expert and helps in his mother's shop. Rejoining the local secondary, he is bullied, but unharmed, by thugs who one day chase him into a neighbour's garden shed. I don’t even remember how I came to read Gavin Extence's debut novel "The Universe Versus Alex Woods" in the first place but while having forgotten over lots of books since, “Alex” has stayed with me because this is more than a coming-of-age story. In conclusion, I really enjoyed "The Universe Versus Alex Woods" a lot. It is a beautifully written and emotionally resonant novel that will stay with you long after you finish reading it. Gavin Extence has created a truly memorable character in Alex Woods. Pariah Town. a pariah is someone who's excluded from mainstream society. And if you know that at twelve years of age, you're probably an inhabitant of Pariah Town.”

The Universe Versus Alex Woods is the kind of book that makes you think, compels you to reevaluate your beliefs and the lengths you're willing to take for a friend. And, if you're reading this review, then you probably already know what I didn't know -- that this book centers around Vonnegut, and devotes a significant part of the book to Slaughterhouse-Five.The friendship between Alex and Mr. Peterson is very much like that of Russell and Carl in Up: a young boy befriends a grouchy old man who lost his wife, and eventually the two begin to consider each other as a family of sorts. I loved watching this friendship grow and develop. Though it was filled with difficulties, the influence that this friendship had on both parties was quite powerful - especially towards the end where it is shown just how much they are willing to do for each other. At the beginning of the novel, Alex is a boy, but with Mr. Peterson's help, he becomes a man with a heightened sense of integrity and a new outlook on life.