Epic Road Trip Of Awesomeness!

Hello Everybody!  Is everybody enjoying their summer vacation?  Have you gone anywhere cool?  Finished your summer reading list yet?  I myself have been road tripping it all over the place and have discovered the perfect book to bring on these jaunts.  I talked about it earlier, but am now ready to ramble my little brains out.  The book is Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest by A. Lee Martinez and IT IS AWESOME!  It was a book I picked randomly from the bookstore stack 'cause it was too perfect not to, and ended up on my favorite book list.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Helen is a minotaur, yep a seven foot tall girl with a cows head, complete with horns, hooves for feet and a body full of fur.  She spends her summer flipping burgers and making friends with Troy, the insanely good looking, yet oddly fully self aware and good natured co-worker.  Things get exciting when Mr. Whiteleaf, the aging elf, tries to summon the Lost God by sacrificing Helen to it.  Things take a wrong turn and the Lost God (who manifests as a huge pile of ground beef) lays a quest on Helen and Troy.   They are approached by the National Questing Bureau and given some tools to help them on their quest.  Off they go to have some absolutley insane adventures.  Meanwhile, Nigel Skullgnasher, an Orcish accountant is summoned by his god to assemble his motorcycle club (which includes a human who wants to be an orc) to assassinate the heroic duo to keep the Lost God (who was banished by the other gods for being a tad to destructive) from obtaining the items he needs to re manifest on Earth.  As Helen and Troy go on their quest, they acquire a three legged dog, various enchanted items and a budding romance.  Some of the tasks they are set to overcome include defeating a professional cyclops, attempting to decipher the fates (lowercase f) cryptic words, survive a dragon preserve, battle a witch with a penchant for gingerbread, and try and figure out where they both fit in the bigger picture of life.   Along the way Helen and Troy are both faced with more esoteric questions, such as which of them is the hero, and which of them is the sidekick, should they finish the quest even though it puts the world at risk or give it up and be killed, and would they ever work as more then friends.  Eventually Helen and Troy finish the quest, the orcs catch up and a big bloody battle ensues.  The Lost God manifests, but is defeated and everybody goes back to attempt to live happily ever after.

Sorry for the chintzy summation, but if I start going into detail I will retype the whole book.  It is impossible to pick a favorite part, so just go read it yourself.  So so so so so many things to love about this book, I am just going to dive in and start gushing in no particular order.  Let's start with the world our story is set in shall we?  This is an alternative Earth, where the legends live on through genetic throw backs, where minotaur's while rare do exist and running into an elf fast food manager is not uncommon.  These folks are called Enchanted Americans and for the most part are treated like any other visible minority.  Magic is a part of this world, yet kept seperated enough that most humans (who are still the majority) and even Enchanted Americans live their lives as modern Americans do.  I find this mix of reality and magic to be blended perfectly and love it, this is one of this authors strengths as his other books also display this urban fantasy style blend. Moving on to the hero's.  Helen is not your typical heroine, she is seven feet tall, covered in fur...and oh yeah has a cows head.  She has come to accept who she is for the most part, but has done this by thinking of herself as somebody who can only go so far, who may never be able to be the leading lady, or the center of attention in any way but as a monster. On the other side of the coin you have the perfect Troy, he is good looking, smart, athletic, funny, and not really stuck up at all.  This pairing gives us the perfect

opportunity to see a myriad of reactions and examine how people look at each other.  I could seriously go on and on and on about all the zillions of ways the author uses these two to make a point, usually in a subtle yet funny way, but a true point all the same.  For instance at one point Troy is trying to describe Helen to his sister, being Asian he is aware that, that is usually the first way he is described and is trying to avoid labeling Helen a nothing more then a minotaur, so he describes her as a tall brunette with really pretty big brown eyes.  This of course brings home the point that most people will use what is different, or distinct about a person to describe them e.g. Black, Gay, The one with the fake leg, etc.  Good, bad or otherwise, this is usually how it works. I love in general how neither of the main characters are typical at all.  The female lead is not conventionally pretty, she is not super anything (other then physically strong...which is because of what she is, not anything special), she is a typical teenage girl, trying to figure life out, and by typical I mean real life typical, not book and movie typical.  The male lead is described as so close to perfect as to make no real difference, and yet he has to deal with that aspect of his himself.  He knows he is good looking, athletic, smart etc, but he also feels that people expect way more out of him because of it, and then he feels bad because he is complaining about his perfection.  The interactions between the two are wonderful and believable and wonderful and awesome and wonderful, I would go on,

but I think I've made my point.  Oh wait one more thing, the fact that the female heroine was the physically dominating/protective one and that the male hero was totally fine with it was really refreshing.  The road quest itself is entertaining and humorous.  I love a well done parody, but find most people either go overboard, or don't go far enough, or just don't understand what is funny.  Mr. Martinez does this tongue in cheek take on a classic epic quest in the vein of the Odyssey and other hero quests to perfection.  He retains all the essentials while at least giving a head nod to some of the more absurd aspects of it.  Ok so I'm gonna quit writing now 'cause a) I want you to all go get this, read it, and come back and discuss it b) I bet if you have made it this far your head hurts and you just want this post to end :-)   I give this amazing book 9 out of 10 possibly enchanted teapots and recommend it to anybody who is looking for a fun read, a book to get you in the road trip mood, or an alternative hero's quest.
What do you think of books that parody a trope?  Do you think we are getting a better variety of hero/heroines in our books?  Am I abnormally excited about this book?