What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror

This may be the strongest book in the John Dies at the End series - it retains the delicate balance of goofy humor, existential dread, and grotesque horror, but it hangs together better as a coherent arc, where its predecessors sometimes rambled with less direction.

Wong/Pargin does a great job of setting up a truly disturbing scene, or poignantly addressing depression and its impact on loved ones . . . and then having John barrel through doing something insouciant, egotistical, and ridiculous. It doesn't undo the more serious themes, it just makes them easier to handle. And provides a good portion of laugh-out-loud moments, which is a worthwhile endeavor all on its own.

And blessings on the author for his afterword, addressing the fans who have contacted him about their real-life encounters with monsters - he kindly exhorts these folks to seek medical help, reassuring them both that his work is 100% fiction, and that seeing visions like this is not uncommon, but is very treatable. You wouldn't necessarily expect important and compassionate reflections on mental illness in a book that deals so much with silicone sex butts, but this novel really delivers on both.