Final Cut

The only thing creepier than any horror movie is just about any teenage boy with a crush. This mood piece never does much beyond giving a girl some small regret for being kind to a boy with some mental health issues and a poor home situation who becomes obsessed with filming a home-made alien invasion thriller with her. It's a thin story stretched over too many pages with too many dream sequences and outright adaptations of a few scenes from some classic movies: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version) and The Last Picture Show.

I just couldn't bring myself to care and nothing on the pages could persuade me.

Meh.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/final-cut-by-charles-burns/

I’ve really enjoyed Burns’ weird stories in the past, and I’m sorry to say that I didn’t find this one as much to my taste, perhaps because it is not as weird. Brian, the protagonist, is a teenager who is obsessed with classic films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Last Picture Show, and also with his friend Laurie. He stumbles around rocky outcrops, both physical and emotional, and doesn’t quite manage to get where he needs to go. It’s OK as a coming of age story, but I wanted a bit more.

Heard about this due to winning some award, blurs the line between real & imagination so not sure what’s real, definitely had me curious to what happens but let down at the end

Great book! I felt like Brian, but he had the childhood I always wanted. Just wish he had really ended up with Laurie in the end.

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