I found this book off-putting right away. The first real page is a little dedication, "I wrote this book for...", followed by a page of acknowledgments which begins "Call me strange, but I read the acknowledgements of every book I read. I think the thank-yous matter". I thought this was a book likely written by a baby boomer hippy, not a hipster who oozes condescending judgements designed to shame me into aspiring to be more like him? Maybe it's my fault for trying to make distinctions between the two in the first place? This page is followed by a quote. Awesome! I'm going to get to the story now! Nope. Next is the authors note, which assures us that "The only thing I know for certain is that this book will be true, someday. Librarians of America will move it from fiction to nonfiction". Oh, okay then.

The author really beats you over the head with the hippy thing, turning most of his characters into caricatures. I felt there was an important message about what’s actually happening to seniors and how nursing homes are run that got lost in the endless pop culture references. But then the story was meant to focus on hippies, I guess it’s just a subject that for me doesn’t contain many surprises. As a young person who really over-identified with the sixties early on, I got most of the references, I picked up on the loss of having lived through and lost such an important and undeniably fun time, and I just don’t care. It’s hard to get passed that spoiled brat mentality and ultimately I felt it wasn’t worth it to try, at least not for this story.

Though I did like the ending. It was surprisingly real and sad.