Akashic Books, 190 pages, trade paperback, $15.95

In high school, we all knew someone who would say really out of control, risqué, and altogether inappropriate things in order to get attention. That guy grew up to be Matthew Stokoe.

If shock is what you are looking for, it won’t last long, as Stokoe overdoes the shock to the point where it’s blasé by the end of the novel. A grotesque cast of characters, gore over story line, and intentionally aimed at being shocking, Cows is not a book that needed to be written or needs to be read. It’s hard as a writer to believe that there could be something written with absolutely no redeeming characteristics but this might be the first book of its kind — a complete waste of paper. If you want to be disappointed with yourself and your bad taste, I recommend picking this up so that you can reminisce on the good old days of that guy in high school, saying gross things to get attention because no one paid any attention to him otherwise.