Having just finished [book: Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You] I don't know why I picked up another story about a depressed young man. Too much depressed young man stuff for one week! Anyway, I think this book will strike your average reader as kind of weird because the titular Justin Case (get it?) has an imaginary dog and Fate talks to him and it's neither fun nor whimsical. It's actually mostly philosophical and troubling.

Maybe Rosoff wrote this book as a kind of meditation on the meaning of life for people who question if it even exists (meaning, that is). Maybe the point of this book is that you must learn to deal with uncertainty to be happy. It's deep stuff with minimal action.

I think I would've loved this book at 16 or 17, during my own philosophically dark days. It's definitely better with the greyhound cover. ( )

What an odd, surreal book. About a teenage with doomed life and a modeling career, or something like that. Also an imaginary greyhound and an enormous rabbit. Would teenage boys like reading it? I think so. I did. ( )

Liked it even better than How I Live Now. YA lit at its best. ( )

"He was strong. Invincible.
Bring on your worst, he said to fate."

"Indeed." (p.97)

David Case is this young adolescent who struggles with what all young adolescents struggle with. As he is grappling to come to terms with the human condition, of which fear and uncertainty is a substantial part, David reinvents an alternative reality, in which he exists as Justin Case (just-in case), hoping to evade or escape fate.

"Fate" appears as a smug commentator, dialogue printed in bold typeface, throwing in comments and observations, and even engages the main character in dialogue.

The most original twist, obviously, at the end of the book, that Fate has its eye on you, too!

I guess kids must be very young to enjoy a novel like this. Who likes not being taken seriously? ( )

The latest from Rosoff, who gave us the astonishing and wonderful How I Live Now, is both disturbing and amusing. The young protagonist, Justin, may be dealing with a mental illness or may in fact be the pawn of a personified Fate who interjects narrative bits every now and then. Hypnotic, engaging, and well-written. ( )