Tantric Coconuts by Gregory D Kincaid

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance meets Life of Pi in this quirky spiritual journey across the wild highways and byways of America, they said. "Okay!" I said. "I'm in!" What I hoped for was a quirky boy-meets-girl (if the boy is a stiff-necked small town lawyer taking a road-trip/vacation to fulfill a promise to his grandfather and the girl is a free-spirited, new age, Native American, beginning her career as a spiritual advisor from the back of a converted bookmobile.) The problem is that the plot really didn't progress much further. Instead, the book segued into a primer on spirituality, various methods, means, types, and approaches. Don't get me wrong-- this is good information, but if I wanted to be exploring a spiritual pathway, I'd like to choose my own reading list, rather than be ambushed from the pages of a novel. As an outline/introduction to different spiritual viewpoints, this one is pretty decent, but again, I wanted a story, not a lesson. Mr Kincaid has created some characters that are just oozing with potential, but abandoned them to help enlighten the reader. I really wish he'd stuck to letting Ted, Angel Two Sparrow, and the dogs develop into fully fleshed out characters.

I'm guessing that there are those who this book will find, and it will be just the right time/tool/introduction to help them move into a new phase of life. I'm not particularly enlightened, but for me, a lot of this was like sitting through a review class on a subject I know pretty well. I plugged on through because it was a book sent to me by Library Thing Early Reviewers and the publisher, for which I am entirely grateful. I will pass it along through BookCrossing, hoping it finds the right reader while it travels the world as a BookCrossing book. Rating it 2.5 stars (out of 5), even though it is a decent introduction to spirituality book. It's just not as decent as a novel.

Tags: advanced-reader-copy, color-me-disappointed, early-review-librarything, not-to-my-taste-but-worthwhile, read, read-for-review, thought-i-was-gonna-like