Goats (ISBN 0786887133)

Amazon.com Review:
In Goats, first novelist Mark Jude Poirier brings us an oddly compelling story of two men, one a teenager, the other about 40, both committed adolescents. Fourteen-year-old Ellis lives with his mom in suburban Tucson, Arizona. Goat Man is, for lack of a better definition, their pool man. He takes care of the pool and the garden, and "in exchange, Ellis's languid mother Wendy gave him food, the pool house, and a meager salary. She also provided him with a place to keep his goats." When he's not caring for his herd, Goat Man spends his off hours growing pot and getting high. And every so often, he heads into the desert for a trek with the goats, walking at night in the cool dark. In many of these pursuits--especially the getting high part--he is joined by the confident, easygoing Ellis. This apprenticeship is interrupted only when Ellis heads off to Gates Academy, the Pennsylvania prep school attended by his absentee father. The novel then follows him as he journeys from his unconventional home into the real world. There are plenty of reasons Goats shouldn't work. For one thing, Ellis is a strangely perfect protagonist. He's good at everything, smart, responsible, too cool for school. Also, the central mystery of Goat Man--how he became Goat Man--remains unsolved. Meanwhile, most of the other characters are one-dimensional: Ellis's slobby roommate at Gates, his spacey mom, his hardliner crew coach. Yet the author has been savvy in choosing his material. The familiar rigors of prep school make a fine foil for the evocative descriptions of Ellis's desert treks. Poirier also cleverly inverts the coming-of-age formula--rather than encountering a strange new world, his tender protagonist emerges into a merely normal one. Most important, Poirier never judges his characters. Ellis doesn't become better than Goat Man or his mother; he simply discovers that he has options besides smoking pot in the pool house, which gives an upbeat twist to this charming and assured debut. --Claire Dederer

Coming of Age through personification:
Goats is an off the wall coming of age story, that brings with it the emotion and depth of a classic novel. The writing style of Mark Jude Porrier entrances the reader and creates an excitment that makes this book impossible to put down. Some of the subject matter may be extreme, but it suits its purpose of being a down to earth coming of age story. The goats that are so vividly described are so personified you begin to associate with them as much as you do the main characters. This book is a great example of a lazy summer read, and will bring a smile and possibly a tear to anyone who reads it.

how Ellis became a bore:
The novel started out strong. I immediatley became immersed in the life of Ellis, Wendy, Goat man and Barney. I wanted so much for Ellis just to keep his cool composure and not sell out to the stuffy persona that his prep school embodied. I did want him to become more responsible than his parents, but I feel like he never really got to have a child hood and then he started becoming a jerk and I was never really sure why. I thought that the novel ended abruptly and didn't give proper explanation of certain details. Like Why was Wendy so crazy? Why did Frank really leave? Did she always love him? Why did Ellis start acting like a spoiled brat? Was Goat man really doing anything with the goats?@! It might have been more of a coming of age novel for Wendy than it really was for Ellis

Great book, very enjoyable read:
I have been reading all the previous reviews of this book and I don't want to be redundant, so I will simply say that this is one of the most enjoyable, easy and fun to read books of its type. Its a real shame that it is not more well known as people are missing out on a good thing. If you havent already done so, read it now. You wont be disappointed!!

What a lovely read...:
I'm no critic. Just know what I like when I read it, and this is a lovely novel. What a cool movie it could be. (Sounding like a teenager is cool, too.) I hope Poirier publishes another novel soon.

Ugh.:
Wasted enough time reading this. So, this will short. Pretentious. Boring. Two things a good book isn't. Thank you.