This book made me so sad. For a few days I was really down after it was over. I don't think it went where I wanted it to go. It is not my style of fiction, so maybe I was expecting more. Maybe it was too subtle for me. This is definitely a different sort of book, and I think it would please a "reluctant reader." ( )

I think what I liked about The Boy Detective Fails was that it turns the pristine childhood detective myth (see Encyclopedia Brown, The Hardy Boys, etc.), that I loved so much as a kid, completely on its head. In this book, the brilliant boy detective grows up, suffers heartache and loss, gets sent to a mental institution, and when he emerges, now 30, the world has evolved and decayed around him. Meno then takes this new character, evolved and somewhat decayed himself, and drops him into situations that his childhood counterpart would have handled easily (if the laws of childhood physics applied at all to adults) and shows us what real life is like. Well, sort of.

The writing is good. The narrator is sympathetic without being sentimental, occasionally breaking down the fourth wall to address the reader directly. Meno uses a number of post-modern styles in formatting (scattering words around a page, utilizing modern typesetting [I mean, "word processing"] tricks such as bullet points) to further illustrate his story.

Would I recommend this book? Sure. It's touching, well written, got good characters, interesting situations, a decent plot driving them. What's not to like. It's probably too eclectic for readers looking for the same old same old, but if you like to explore off the beaten path, I think this would be a fun adventure. ( )

Any book that plays with the theme of lost youth/innocence is going to be something that I'll fall for hard, which is why it surprised me that I wasn't flat-out in love with this book. All I can explain is that Meno, in the midst of his quirky scenes, sudden left turns, and puzzle gimmicks, ends up keeping some emotional distance from his characters.

The set-up is intriguing enough: the sister of a now-grown-up boy detective (who also served as Watson to his Sherlock) commits suicide, and the "boy" -- Billy Argo, now 30 years old -- wants to understand why. Along his path, he reminisces about past cases and even solves one that had been left unsolved (with some help from beyond the grave from his sister).

Lots of funny characters wander in and out of Billy's journey, including some of his arch-nemeses and a love interest. I commend Joe Meno for his creativity and for his playing with the novel form, but I had a hard time feeling like it all came together into something coherent and singular. Meno received much attention from an earlier novel (_Hairstyles of the Damned_), and I have to think that were it not for the success of that first book, this book may have had a harder time getting published. ( )

"The Boy Detective Fails" centers around Billy Argo, a once amazing boy detective who solved the most difficult puzzles and cases with his sister Caroline and their friend Fenton. His world turned upside down when his sister mysteriously committed suicide, and suddenly Billy didn't have an answer or know how to solve this one mystery. And his world crumbled. The novel followed Billy's picked up his quest years later, upon being released from a mental hospital for trying to kill himself. The world turned into a mystical place, where buildings disappeared into thin air, flipping the light switch in his room started a gently falling snow flurry, and coded messages appear from nowhere. (He also befriended two neighborhood children trying to discover who decapitated their pet rabbit.)

An intriguing fantasy -- almost like reading a Tim Burton film -- world that was a bit difficult for me to get into, at first. I found it too bizarre for my tastes, but I stuck with it not only because the story of Billy trying to solve his sister's suicide held my interest, but because Meno included a few puzzles for the reader to solve. (Many of the pages have an encrypted word at the bottom of the page, in much smaller font; also the "narrator" of the tale invites the reader to use a decoder key, presented at the back of the book, to help Billy decipher the mysterious notes he finds.) Gimmicky, yes, yet it added a bit of insight into Billy's character, his fascination with puzzles and with solving them. And I was hooked. And I was satisfied. ( )

I had him as a fiction writing professor at Columbia College Chicago. A rare teacher in that he cares about his students and wants them to care just as much about the craft of writing.
I appreciate his work and his efforts.