This book was extremely well written, but it suffered from the all-too-frequent malady of the character-driven novel: nothing much happens. The story revolves around a drug dealer who has been convicted in federal court and is living out his last 24 hours before he must report to prison. So he gets together with his dog, his father, his two best friends, his girlfriend and some of his drug-dealing cohorts to—Well, there really is no appropriate way to mark such an occasion, is there?

Along the way, we learn about his life, his friends’ lives, his girlfriend, how he rescued his dog – all the things that make us interested in these people. But the problem is they don’t do much of anything. It seems like they’re all on the verge of making some momentous change, of somehow steering their lives – which have all gone off track, they don’t know how – back in the right direction. The teacher is going to shrug off his fear and grab a little gusto. The obsessive investment broker is going to figure out what’s really important. The drug dealer – who of course we like despite his profession – is going to figure out how to get out of going to prison.

But none of this stuff quite happens; it just almost does. Even at the end, as the drug dealer is riding with his father toward prison and his father suggests taking a wrong turn, and he ends up imagining the life he might have if he were to run – even then, he doesn’t do it. Or maybe he does. We never know. And that was the frustrating thing about this novel. It was a good read, but it left me unsatisfied, wondering how in the hell they found enough going on in this book to make a movie out of it. (Oh, that’s right, I didn’t like the movie either.)