{"id":7042,"date":"2026-08-13T13:43:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=7042"},"modified":"2026-08-13T13:43:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:43:00","slug":"unwrap-your-candy-by-jesse-miller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=7042","title":{"rendered":"Unwrap Your Candy by Jesse Miller"},"content":{"rendered":"

A gripping, contemporary echo of Joyce\u2019s<\/strong> Ulysses<\/em><\/strong> that bursts with its own creative vigor<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Thom Evans\u2019s experiences over twenty-four hours at the end of his work day bear similarities to those of his century-old predecessor from James Joyce\u2019s Ulysses<\/em>, Leopold Bloom.<\/p>\n

Like Bloom, Thom is the everyman antihero, living an unenviable humdrum life: getting chubby, hating his drab job at a condom factory, making the most of his relationship with his long-time partner. Like Molly Bloom, Samantha Freeman still attracts, but her beauty is fading. She has deep personal issues that complicate their lives, much like how the loss of infant Rudy affected the Blooms. Thom\u2019s father, who died in a horrific accident, is a hauntingly palpable presence for the son.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

After work, Thom goes to a bar to wait for Samantha. From there the couple will move on to a masquerade party, with Thom dressing up as a condom. The party gets raunchy and revealing in disturbing ways that become too much for our hero, compelling him to leave. Only his evening continues to deteriorate into the wee hours in an urbanized odyssey that extends with his efforts at reconciliation the next day.<\/p>\n

The storytelling adopts many hallmarks of Ulysses<\/em>, such as the stream of consciousness delving into Thom\u2019s mind and the use of em dashes (\u2014) for dialogue. There is also plenty in the way of puns and innuendo, with Thom\u2019s vocation offering fertile ground for material. Several of Thom\u2019s prosaic experiences will be amusingly recognizable to anyone familiar with Joyce\u2019s classic work. Such as when taking a bath to wash away the dirt after awakening from his disastrous evening out:<\/p>\n

\u201cHis plump stomach rolled across the surface of the water and bobbed with the current. Floating above and burning, a fleshly sunrise. He tried to ignore it, pretending, but he couldn\u2019t. The blinding thing.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

However, there are distinct differences. Bloom\u2019s odyssey begins in the morning while for Thom it begins twelve hours later. Then there\u2019s the sequencing of story time. In Ulysses<\/em> it\u2019s chronological while here the pattern alternates between day and night in opposite directions until scattering with the crashing of Thom\u2019s inner world.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to fall into a trap of over-reverence via imitation, but the author successfully rides that line. While Thom and other characters parallel those of Joyce, their temperaments and relational dynamics are natural and incidental, not at all contrived or made to fit. The Joycean experimental spirit is ever-present, but, like a child breaking away to learn on its own, Thom\u2019s story comes to fend for itself, finding its own way. Particularly in how the concluding chapters get both surreal and dramatic and prose more fitting Thom\u2019s devolving persona:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe . . . offered the record to the platter, excusing the needle from its pedestal. The thin concentric furrows, the fingerprints of the platter, spun wildly into a wobbly black convulsion. The needle descended like a giraffe\u2019s great bowing head to kiss the ground.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ulysses<\/em> has an academic sheen to complement its grit whereas the world of Thom Evans is sheen-less grit. This isn\u2019t merely an imitation exercise or pastiche, and there\u2019s no aura of pretension. Thom\u2019s personal odyssey is intense and gripping on its own and crasser in a way that\u2019s more relatable for a twenty-first century reader. This novel is also more compact and accessible than its progenitor, at least until its startling end.<\/p>\n

Unwrap Your Candy<\/em> will instantly appeal to those who admire Joyce, especially Ulysses<\/em>, which, if not already apparent, includes this reviewer. But one needn\u2019t have read Ulysses to enjoy this work. An artful contemporary work that resonates with the origins of literary modernism. Unwrap Your Candy<\/em> serves as a compelling gateway to tackling one of the greatest challenging novels of all time.<\/p>\n

The post Unwrap Your Candy by Jesse Miller<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A gripping, contemporary echo of Joyce\u2019s Ulysses that bursts with its own creative vigor Thom Evans\u2019s experiences over twenty-four hours at the end of his work day bear similarities to those of his century-old predecessor from James Joyce\u2019s Ulysses, Leopold Bloom. Like Bloom, Thom is the everyman antihero, living an unenviable humdrum life: getting chubby, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7042"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}