The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence

 

The title, and to an extent the cover copy, make this seem as though it's going to be about various weirdness; it's not. I wouldn't say this novel isn't weird, but it's entirely real-world stuff--some of it pretty depressing schoolboy stuff, some of it stark more adult real-world stuff. Structurally, it's mostly one long flashback inside a frame story; definitely a bildungsroman, focused on the right to die. It's pretty well-written, though there are some things--some of the events, some of the people--that kinda rattled my suspension of disbelief, but they didn't do so badly enough to kick me out of the novel.