In HELL OF A BOOK by Jason Mott, the unnamed narrator is on a publishing tour of his book. The narrator has experienced a lot of trauma, and he's going through a lot of mental anguish throughout the tour. This book gives an honest look at the Black experience, and I always like to read own voices in this area. I always feel like I learn and internalize more with each book like this. 

The narrative is also interspersed by what I believe are chapters from the unnamed narrator's book with a main character of a boy named Soot. I felt more grounded by these chapters because I could understand the story better. The unnamed narrator's chapters were sometimes a bit ethereal because he would conjure characters to interact with, like Nicolas Cage. I'm not the best with reading non-literal scenes, but, again, the narrator is going through some stuff so it makes sense with the character the author created, just not my literal brain. I couldn't always tell what actually happened versus what was only in the narrator's mind. I suppose it doesn't really matter except in my tiny brain. 

This is a unique novel that is difficult to classify into a specific genre. I genuinely liked its uniqueness even though I'm not sure I comprehended it to the extent the author wanted me to. I did feel like I came away understanding a bit more about the Black experience, especially as it relates to policing and the related trauma, which had to be at least part of the author's purpose in writing this.