one of the most creative, fun, and disturbing narratives you'll ever read--a challenge to readers as the prose is knowingly avant-garde but yet still accessible for those willing to let it all wash over them

If Irish author James Joyce's stream of conciousness technique were transplanted to the near-mid 21st century, a possible result might be Rob McCleary. TOO FAT TO GO TO THE MOON is the narrative of a poor little rich boy cast onto really hard times, in a near-future America taken over by trees. Yes, Trees. Mother Nature does indeed fight back, and successfully.

A hilarious dystopia about America. In 2030 America is no longer a world power, but a land colonized by the Chinese. Americans are no longer free to walk because trees invaded every place and blocked people where they are. America is no more a safe place, but a dangerous place tattered in rags, with abandoned shopping centers and dodging gangs. America is no longer the place of advanced medical science, but the land of polio, cholera, and lingering deaths. The astonishing image of America is that of a place full of piss, garbage and shit. America is described as the world’s largest ecological disaster. Americans are now using rockets to get rid of garbage. America, therefore, is described as a horrible place to live in and unfit for human life. Lotteries started running in America, one of them from NASA. The prize was to put some random winner into space. The winner is a fat guy from Cleveland named Jimmy, but he can’t even make it out of his own home so he sold his tickets off to the highest bidder. To sum up, this book, with a fragmentary tone and full of repetitions, makes you laugh and at the same time reflect about what is really happening in the world. I read in it an ecological message: 'We are not caring too much about nature and preserving it for the future generations'..

This is a sort of Vonnegut-esque novel, although more...off-color? (I have never read the phrase "jerking off" so many times before and certainly not in the first sentence of a book.) Really the whole thing was kind of ludicrous, but I still mostly liked it. I don't really know how to explain the plot, if there is one. It was absurd and overall enjoyable. 3.5 stars rounded to 4.

Too Fat To Go To The Moon :)
Rob McCleary
Description
Too Fat to go to the Moon is Zero Books' latest foray into avant-garde fiction.

In 2030 America is broke. When NASA is forced to raffle off a trip to outer space and the orbiting Houston Astrodome, Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty, the ticket is won by a guy from Cleveland who is so fat he can’t make it out of his own house, let alone get crammed in a rocket ship. Instead, he auctions the ticket off, and the winning bid belongs to the patriarch of the Van Kruup family, an American dynasty founded on coal, railroads, and masturbation (not necessarily in that order). But when they lose their inter-generation fortune in the Great Funk Crash, Stanely Van Kruup, sole heir to the Van Kruup fortune, is evicted from the ten thousand acre estate in rural Pennsylvania he has left only once since birth and must search for his (presumed dead) older brother in an attempt to restore his inheritance.

I knew I HAD to read the book after reading the description of the book. Even the name of the book makes sense. What a wild, hilarious read. Do not try to sneak read this during work. You have been warned. Enjoyed.

Thank you, NetGalley for an advance copy of the book for my honest review.

A difficult book to read and I also found parts of it very repetitive and fragmented. But the topic is really interesting and well thought out but the writing style did not appeal.