“The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World.”

This is the beginning of Libba Bray's award-winning book, Going Bovine. The rest is just as funny and raw as the first line. It introduces Cameron, an underachiever who only wants to get through life unscathed. The story is told through his eyes and nothing is left out.

Cam is honest, funny, and at times, incredibly awkward. ­Interesting characters who ­interact in very real ways (who knew that a stoner would give such an interesting physics lesson?) and the traumas of high school all play a part in Going Bovine. Cameron stays in the background until he gets some bad news: He's going to die, which is really “sucktastic.”

Then he meets Dulcie, a punk angel who tells him that he needs to go on a mission, where, if he succeeds, he will be cured. So off he goes to save the world, find a cure, and figure out the purpose of Gonzo, a dwarf obsessed with video games.

Going Bovine takes something really bad and manages to pull dark humor out of it. Through a strange and seemingly random journey, Bray uses interesting dialogue, Cameron's inner monologue, and his unique situations, to pull together a story of life, death, and microwave popcorn. You are thrown in directions that seem completely random but, as Dulcie says, “In a world like this one, only the random makes sense.”

As the 2010 Printz winner (for excellence in young adult literature) Going Bovine truly deserves this award. It strikes a chord of familiarity and adventure and provides real insight into the mind of a 16-year-old “dude.” It makes you laugh, cry, and want to go to New Orleans just as much as it makes you think. You develop a desire to live life to its fullest.

Fantastic imagery and emotion make Going Bovine an amazing book. The details make the scenes and characters leap off the page. You either really want to be friends with them or know that if you actually knew them you would despise being in their company. It's impossible not to want to read until, excuse the pun, the cows come home! Providing hours of laughter and moments of sadness, it is one of those books that you will pull out just to see what the heck it's about and then end up bringing to dinner to read.

People who enjoyed the previous works of Libba Bray (The Gemma Doyle series) will not be disappointed by this unique and strange work of fiction. Although very different, this book uses incredible characterization, dialogue, and plots that always make her books fascinating.