Fade to Blue by Sean Bedouin

I read Fade to Blue by Sean Bedouin (Little, Brown) in tiny gulps--just a few pages at a time. Each chapter is very short, so it worked. And I'm not sure I could have read it any other way.

Take the Matrix. Add a dash of Beetlejuice. Try mixing in, say, Ellen Page in black lipstick, and Groundhog Day, and maybe some Michael J. Fox in his Back to the Future days.

Sophie Blue is pretty sure that a popsicle truck is trying to kill her. Kenny Fade--well, he's not himself lately. Everything is dipped in the surreal, and Sophie just wants to figure out what happened to her dad, who disappeared on her birthday. There's a hole in her elbow, and she's supposed to go back to the laboratory where it all went down. Is anyone--real? If she's offered the chance to plug in and take it with her when she goes, what will she do? In this story, something completely and utterly bizarre.

Fade to Blue is an experimental narrative, and won't be for everyone, but even though I didn't know what was going on half the time--and the other half of the time, Bedouin was pulling the rug out from under me--I really enjoyed this read. If you're interested in the nature of reality, concerned about consuming, and curious about science future, this might be for you too.