Title: (OMG) Don Quixote and Candide Seek Truth, Justice, and El Dorado in the Digital Age (LOL)
Author: Stefan Soto
Genre: Picaresque Satire
Pages: 300
Rating: 2.5 of 5

First, thank you to the author for providing me a free copy via netgalley. (this does not affect the content of the review)

This book is basically an excuse to have various fictional characters interact with each other in the modern world. If you look up picaresque novel on Wikipedia, you will get a pretty good idea of the wandering, disconnected style of this book. The focus is on individual episodes and snarky quips rather than an overall plot with the connections between episodes being fairly random and unbelievable. If you like this picaresque style you will probably enjoy the book…personally, I’m not a huge fan (I was expecting a tighter plot due to blurbs comparing it to The Eyre Affair).

As far as the characters go, some of the characterizations were spot on (e.g. the idealistic Don Quixote and vain Cyrano de Bergerac whose interaction is one of the better scenes) and others were less so (e.g. the Star Trek characters felt like the author wasn’t very familiar with them other than in a general make-fun-of-the-best-known-tropes kind of way). The elements of irony, satire, and meta-fiction woven throughout were entertaining enough to keep me reading, but overall it was only a so-so book for me.