The basic story is about teenager Ryan, who along with some friends dig up the corpse of one Jeffrey Neil, for a bit of stupid, drunken fun. He then finds Jeffrey's old internet blogg and gets to know him and his world view. This, and the situations created by the theft of the body, changes Ryan's life. You could also say that it's a story about modern America, cheap beer, V8 engines, teenage sex and death.
If you wanna compare it to other books, this is like a small town, lower middle class version of Bret Easton Ellis' Less than Zero, maybe, where people are so jaded that they no longer care about anything.
It also reminded me a lot of the classic movie Repo Man, in more than ways one; there's a disgust with mass market consumer society and how ironically limited our choices are, shown in the constant references to generic brand names. There's a creepy looking man in a car, driving around spreading death and disease, and the main character's actual coming of age is through both car chases and the sudden introduction of new philosophies. Corpse of Freedom could be made into a great movie.
The dialoge reads true and the story's fast moving and never dull or predictable, yet believable. Maybe a little short and with the philosophies somewhat simple, but that still works within the book's teenage frame.
Read it.
