Pieces of Stars

2.5So, twenty years ago, when I was in grade school, my dad was friends with this guy who would become the very first anti-government conspiracy dude I would meet. He talked about "going off the grid" and "refusing to be issued your social security number -which you can't do. You can refuse to use it, but you get one unless your kid is born off grid too-" and "refusing to be bound to the government chains of a driver's license", etc. When my dad found this book and insisted my hubby and I read it, it was like getting sucked through a time warp and into my parents' living room of two decades ago.Let me just say, the stuff that happens in here is as far-fetched and extreme TO ME as it was then. I'm one of those annoying people who believes that if things go awry, there will be people in the world who will band together for good, instead all the looting, raping, pillaging, etc, that generally happens in mens' view of POST-apocalyptic fiction(speaking only to the fiction that I've read. If there is another example that is the opposite, please feel free to point it out to me).This is why I didn't read The Road. I don't see mankind as irredeemable. Perhaps it's because I'm a Christian and it's there in the Bible. Perhaps because my own life experience has shown me otherwise. In any case, even though I thought that overall this could have been an interesting book (and was, in a lot of ways), it is just not for me. It goes against pretty much all my personal beliefs, a lot of it feels dated and ranty, and it is filled to the brim with excessive detail.Now, let me comment on the detail part of this. I LONG to hit this book with a RED PEN OF DOOM, to get rid of stuff that just doesn't need to be in it. People will say, "but he puts that stuff in there so this book is like a manual in a novel." Yes, there are certain cases of that, but I will counter argue with this example:In the book there are two guys that buy a car from this old dude and when they fill out the pink slip they refuse to put down their address, because they're fugitives from the law. When the old guy gets the paperwork, the author LEAVES the main characters' perspective, goes INTO the brain of the old guy (who seriously takes up about a minute of reading time) and has him thinking how weird it is that they didn't do that. Oh, and that it will probably be fine in the end, because he will get it when the DMV stuff comes back to him. HUH??? Like, WHY IN GOD'S NAME DO WE CARE ABOUT THAT??? It's like the author was afraid of any teeny tiny little plot hole and just had to put in every conceivable explanation for everything. I sincerely hope that his editor wife cuts this book with a surgeon's blade and puts out a MUCH NEEDED abridged addition.