It’s been a few years since we last checked in with Edward, and so far, he’s having a shitburger of a year. He was fired (or should I say involuntarily separated) from his job at the Billings Herald Gleaner, his new best friend Donna moved away with her son Kyle, Dr Buckley has retired, and possibly worst of all, Edward’s dragnet tapes have broken, stopping his usual nightly 10pm tradition. Everything is turned upside down for Edward, the routines that we were introduced to in the first book have been smashed to pieces and Edward is feeling adrift. He’s still ‘fucking loaded’, but he has no idea what to do with his life.

But Kyle is in trouble at school, and Donna phones up to ask that Edward drive down and see if he can find out what is wrong. Edward would do anything for Donna and Kyle, so he willingly obeys, but Kyle is rude and disruptive and Edward ends up leaving early. But when he’s well on his way home, he notices a little stowaway in the back seat of his car – Kyle has hidden to come along for the ride. And so starts a road trip like no other. And when Edward finally finds out what has been bothering Kyle so much, he’s shocked to the core and insists on driving Kyle straight home.

Which leads Edward into trouble in a big snowstorm. The ‘landing him in hospital with serious injuries’ kind of trouble. With Kyle gone home with his parents, the story then shifts to the burgeoning relationship with Sheila, the owner of the motel where Edward was staying. They are more alike than he thinks, and you can see straight away that they are perfect for each other. But for Edward, nothing ever runs smoothly, and this time it’s Edward’s own mother putting a spanner in the works, insisting on dragging him straight home and wrenching him away from Sheila when it looks like life may finally work out perfectly for him.

And so my heart was breaking once again for poor Edward, just praying that something could happen to let Edward run down the course of true love.

There were many things I loved in this book. First of all, Edwards choice of words. Shitburger, shitballs, tallywhacker, his bitchin’ iPhone. I was listening to this book in my car and I found myself constantly laughing out loud (when I wasn’t close to crying, that is). Most of his unusual choice of language is influenced by his ex-colleague Scott Shamwell. He was always good to Edward, but his language was crude at best. But he did help Edward make some very important decisions towards the end of the book. Advice like this:

“Love is something else, man. Love is bullshit and weird and stupid, but shit, man, if you have love, everybody should leave you alone and let you keep it for as long as you can.”

He’s such an extraordinary character than you can’t help rooting for him to win. There’s simply not a bad bone in his body and all the way through the book, you’re just constantly wishing for him to be happy. I think it’s possible that I’m a little bit in love with Edward. He’s most definitely my favourite character from any of my recent books. He’s kind and loveable with an extremely good heart, and when I started reading this book, I was devastated that he was having such a bad time. All I wanted was to reach out into the pages and give him a big hug.

I won’t spoil the ending, but I really can’t give enough praise to this masterpiece of a book. I would absolutely love a third book in the series so that we can see what happens to Edward next, I’m just so reluctant to let him go so soon.

I would also really recommend listening to the audio version of this book instead of simply reading it. The way that the narrator brought Edward to life was masterful and just gave the book that extra something which I think made it perfect. Highly recommended, I simply can’t find anything bad to say!