I'm really at 3.5 on this one. I enjoyed the plot and I found myself really feeling sympathy for Milo even though he's a pretty strange guy. All of the cultural references in the book seemed to be snatched out of my own childhood memories -- so that helped me to enjoy the book more too.

Still, I'm not sure that this story will work for everyone, hence the hedging between 3 and 4 stars.

This is my second Matthew Dicks book and while I enjoyed the plot of the first one (Something Missing) I never warmed up to the main character. In this one, it was easy to appreciate all Milo's good qualities and his struggle to appear normal. I think we all fight that fight to some extent within ourselves.

Very much looking forward to Matthew Dicks next book: Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. ( )

Unexpectedly Milo is unexpectedly awesome! Milo Slade suffers from OCD and has spent his life hiding his affliction from others. He's been startlingly successful; even his wife has no idea. But now his marriage is breaking up and he's struggling to figure out how to fix it when he happens upon a video camera and some tapes. The tapes turn out to be the video diary of a woman who believes herself responsible for the recent death of her best friend and also for the presumed death of her childhood best friend who she helped to run away and who was never seen again. Milo decides to try to find the missing girl and reunite the two, and this is the story of his quest. Funny, sad, heartfelt, and absolutely just right. ( )

Good light read, well plotted. ( )

In his first novel, SOMETHING MISSING, Mr. Dicks introduced us to Martin Railsback, a different sort of thief, with OCD. In this book we meet Milo Slade, a health care worker with OCD-ish tendencies, which complicate his everyday life and are, quite possibly, at the root of his current crumbling marital situation. One day Milo finds a video camera complete with a collection of sixteen tapes on a park bench. As he begins to watch the tapes, ostensibly in order to locate the owner of the camera, he realizes he is watching a video diary and the lovely young woman has just confessed to be the cause of her friend’s death. As the tapes progress, Milo and the reader discover that she is harbouring secrets about many things. Milo, knowing the depths of despair one can sink into because of secrets, decides to rescue this young girl. As he embarks on a journey to make this happen, Milo and the reader meet a cast of quirky, lovable characters and travel through some interesting adventures, mostly brought on my Milo’s unexplainable needs. After all, popping the seals on numerous jelly jars, singing karaoke (99 Luftballons – in the original German) and needing to deflate all the tires on your own car can cause a few stares in polite company!

In reading this book I found myself getting a little annoyed with the repetitiveness of the author’s description of Milo’s issues, until I realized it may have been a tool he used to allow the reader to have just a little taste of Milo’s state of mind. Overall, this was a fun book. I liked the message that “no matter how weird you think you might be … in one way or another, everyone else is too!” Personally however, I enjoyed Martin Railsback more and wish that his character had been brought back for this second book. Oh well, maybe there will be a third book from Mr. Dicks and we can reunite with Martin then.
( )

Milo is a funny and quirky guy. He has OCD which results in several odd and compulsive behaviors, such as popping open jelly jars, singing a certin song in karaoke, bowling a strike, and others. He goes to a lot of trouble to conceal these behaviors from others. We meet Milo as his marriage is at a rocky point and he finds a stranger's video camera with recordings in a park. I very much enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more books by this author in the future. ( )