The Whole

MTV is my guilty pleasure (or one of them ... I seem to excuse anything that is remotely embarrassing as a "guilty pleasure"). So, when I happened upon The Whole, by John Reed, and saw that it was published by MTV Books, I could not resist but pick it up and read it.
I will try and give as unbiased a report on the books as I can, but, as I said, I just like MTV, and therefore, you may want to take my words with a grain of salt (if not less).
As far as I can tell, the story is supposed to be a bit of a satire, sort of based off of Alice in Wonderland. But it takes place in a media-heavy, MTV-centered New York City. I can't tell if MTV requested that Mr. Reed plug MTV into the book, or if he just decided to use the channel as a sort of symbol, but it's all over the place.
One thing I liked about the storytelling was that it really read like a fairy tale. The narrative is in a weird tense, so it sounds almost child-like. But then again, the story appears to have a deeper meaning, or something. The fact that the book is called The Whole, and that it revolves around a hole is one layer. Also, the main character is named Thing, which leads the reader to think that the author is trying to comment on something. But if he is commenting on something like "MTV makes us all the same person, and therefore just 'things'," why would MTV Books publish the novel?
So, I admit, I don't really get it all that well. But that's okay. The book is worth reading.

All at once it is fast-paced and slow. It kept me turning the pages, even when there was really nothing there. A large part of the book is just Thing's monologue, but it remains [sort of] engaging at all times, so I still liked reading it. Oh yeah - you can read the first chapter at Amazon.com.