How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu

Despite its tongue-in-cheek title and happy, bright orange cover, this is not an easy read. Emotionally. Philosophically. I struggled to maintain interest for bits of the book, because it's incredibly (perhaps excessively) introspective. Not much of anything happens. The crazy universe and time travel aside, this is a book about a son trying to find, and understand, his father. There are a lot of feelings, so many feelings, and though I hate to admit it, I need more plot to pull me through. It's too stream of consciousness, too existential, for me to enjoy it as fiction. This is purely personal taste, though, and I can at least say that I love the idea behind the novel, and am impressed with Yu's mental acrobatics in successfully executing what I can well guess was a rather amorphous concept. I just think this wasn't the book for me.