Onthaxis USA

I loved Water Dogs. It's a tale of two brothers and a twin sister living on a fishing island near Portland ME. Bennie, the younger brother in his early twenties and Gwen's twin, tells the story.

It centers around an outdoor paintball game gone bad, "fought" in a winter storm. But the event never overwhelms the personal stories of the family, friends, dogs and life in the village. It's a tight character study of grown children brought up under a rigorous family code, a code that brings on trouble but in the end helps them survive, and even teaches them how to love.

While geared toward teens, it worthwhile for adults too.
Charlie is a bright teenager, moving through his freshman year in high school. He becomes friends with a bunch of seniors who are supportive and caring, but by no means perfect. There is a secret, but it's not in any way obvious.
Charlie has the usual family drama's going on but the joy here is experiencing his journey of self discovery and the sensitive portraits of his friends, a caring teacher, and his family.
While "perks" are in the title, the lesson is to get off the wall and into the action.

Story of a guy who wakes up to find that he is the only person left on earth. His interminable wanderings and an ever increasing paranoia while he sets up numerous cameras to video himself and search for others get repetitive. I have to admit that I ended up skimming from the middle of the book to the end.
A comparison to Philip K. Dick was made on the dusk jacket. It applies only the self watching self concept. This 375 page novel should have been a 25 page short story.

It’s a story about a functioning dysfunctional family. It’s not a downer because it deals more with how they cope and even tho I didn’t expect it, the ending was somewhat uplifting. It’s chock full of small but wonderful moments –some funny, others sad.
I almost didn’t read it because the cover flap made it seem (incorrectly) like the characters were “zany”. It didn’t say “zany”. I always stay away from “zany” and “hilarious”.

Needs a careful reading. This is an apocalyptic style novel of the near future. It's hard to follow between various people in various time frames who could be different people in other time frames.
The writing is exquisite.

The second half has separate literal narrative line that continues across each page, separate but thematically relevant to the other text on that page.