John Dies at the End

It was engaging enough for me to read it quickly, but I ended up disappointed I couldn't like the book more. My biggest problem with it is that it's too self-conscious – full of dismissals and qualifications to show that the author really is in on the joke, honest! Sure, it's just a bunch of vignettes loosely tied together, and yes, plot threads are left dangling. That would've been fine if he'd just been confident enough to write a modern comedy/horror story with some Lovecraft monsters thrown in. Instead, it keeps jumping in right as the story is becoming engaging, and it reduces itself to standard disaffected Internet blog writing.

This book is weird. That's the only way I can really describe it; it's weird like House of Leaves, except minus the crazy formatting and also hilarious. It's the sort of thing that you'll either REALLY REALLY love, or completely detest, and it's almost entirely subjective (case in point: BFF and I have same taste in books, usually; I loved it, she hated it).

That said, I think it could use a sterner editor's touch. But if you like body horror, time travel, humor, and just plain weirdness, give it a try.

This was... really fun. Overtones of Joss Whedon and Carl Hiaasen, all in good ways. Smart characters, sassy dialog, improbable situations accepted with total coolness. Deliciously unpredictable. And did I mention fun?I started it last night, desperate for some bubblegum after failing with [b:Infinite Jest 6759 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165604485s/6759.jpg 3271542], and found quite a bit more than I was expecting. Delightfully more.

“Amateurish” is a tricky word. Technically it just means stuff that's not created by professionals, but I've never seen it used to just mean that - it's always used as a pejorative, implying that stuff created by amateurs is inherently inferior to stuff created by professionals. It's a little sad, when you think about it, that stuff people create just for the love of it is reflexively valued as less than stuff people get paid to make.

So I'm not going to call this an amateurish novel. It's not written in a “professional” way - the story kind of goes all over the place, the narrative voice and the sense of humour that runs through it are inconsistent at times, and it has an attitude that is snide and flippant towards its audience. And because of those things, it's a great, fun read.

Plus, you've got to love a novel that spoils itself in the title.

I went looking for something funny to read and this popped up. It started out wacky crazy insanity with lots of laughs. Then it turned to blood and guts everywhere comedic horror, although it felt like the author was trying for something higher. It hit a bit of a turning point at the 75% mark with a remembered tale of high school violence and I was close to DNF at that point. However, it improved in style and became a bit more cohesive as the protagonists realised they were about to save the universe. The closing sequence was very clever - the bit on the basketball court - where they (and us) realise that somebody else could have done a much better job.

Is this some experiment in allowing a first-time writer to publish a book without ever sending it through the traditional editing process? A blisteringly entertaining opening gives way to a glacial middle third, and then the book just fizzles to a close without any sense of any sort of through-line or cohesion. I guess the through-line and cohesion would appear if you read the follow-up, but honestly, after slogging my way through this, I don't think I'll return for seconds, thanks.