Tuesday 6 March 2018

Book ~ "Checking Out" (2018) Nick Spalding

From Goodreads ~ What do you do when the doctor says you could die at any moment? Well ... after you’ve made a cup of tea, of course.

Nathan James is young, successful and has the world at his feet. Unfortunately he’s also about to die - which ruins things somewhat. And now he’s staring imminent death in the face, Nathan is having to rethink some of his life choices very hard.

This means embarking on a hectic journey of self-discovery that includes, amongst other things, losing his dignity to an inescapable bean bag, suffering screaming nightmares about a monstrous potato and getting up close and very personal with a bipolar donkey.

All of which is fine but then Nathan falls in love with a charming girl called Alison, which is a really stupid thing to do. Because how can you give your heart to someone when it might be about to stop?

Nathan is 33 years old.  He's just sold the rights to a show he had created for a lot of money, his girlfriend is a gorgeous but vain model (and he's okay with that) and he's trying to figure out what to do with all his money.  Then his doctor tells him he has a brain tumour and there's nothing that can be done.  He could pass away at any time.  Not the kind of news he wants to receive.

Unexpectedly he meets Allison and they fall in love ... except Nathan hasn't told Allison that he could drop dead at any second.  He wants to find something worthwhile to do with what life he has left so sets out to figure out what that is which has interesting results.

This is the fourth book I've read by this author and I liked it.  I liked the writing style ... it was funny and sarcastic.  Despite the subject matter, the book is a comedy.  It is written in first person perspective in Nathan's voice.  The author is English and the story happens there so some of the references aren't common to North Americans.  As a head's up, there is a lot of swearing and some adult activity.

I look forward to reading other books by this author.

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