Category: Monsters

John Dies at the End, by David Wong

 John Dies at the End

Written by David Wong, Narrated by Stephen R. Thorne

Reason for Reading: Real Life bookclub

Genre: Quirky adult horror


Review
This book is the king of unreliable narration. Presumably, this book is about David and John, two friends in a Midwestern town who need to fight off evil forces when a new drug (soy sauce)  opens a door to a parallel universe. Although it’s clear that David exaggerates a good deal for the sake of story-telling, it is up to interpretation whether David and John are really kicking the EF from PU butt, or if they’re hallucinating. Either way, it’s a wild, crazy, and very humorous ride. The humor is very dark, dry, and sometimes witty. It was my favorite part of the book. The plot was fairly non-existent, though. The book was more about action and weirdness – the story was just too wild to actually have a coherent plot. During the middle of the book, I was starting to regret that it was so long because I’m more of a plot-driven than situational-driven reader. But I’m glad I hung in there, because I got some great laughs and may view the world a tiny bit differently after listening to this book. 

You wouldn’t think this book would lend itself well to audio format, but Stephen R. Thorne did an amazing job. His delivery of the dry humor and action was spot on. I’m happy that I took the risk on audio. 🙂

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs

2012 Book 163: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs

Reason for Reading: I was originally going to give it to my dad for Christmas, but it wasn’t as amazing as I thought it would be

Review

Jacob has grown up believing that his grandfather’s tales of adventure and magical children were a fantasy. However, when Jacob’s life is suddenly turned upside down, he must go on a quest to a tiny island off Wales to see the orphanage his grandfather grew up in. There, he discovers that there was some element of truth in his grandfather’s stories…and he finds out that his life is in danger. This book was a fantastic idea. Riggs used some unique vintage photographs that he’d borrowed from a few collectors and built a story around the weird images. The photos were fascinating…I really loved looking at them. And I was excited to see what sort of story was built around them. However, the story was a bit contrived. I suppose that it would have to be, given that it’s built around some randomly rescued photos…So Riggs deserves some credit for a good eye and a creative idea. His writing was a bit lack-luster…as I said, it was a bit contrived, and it leaned too heavily on formulaic fantasy. Shades of X-men, Groundhog Day, etc. abound. Nothing wrong with using old formulas, of course – no concept is every fully new – but overall the writing just didn’t hold its own. I might or might not pick up the next book in the series…we’ll see. 🙂 I’ll probably read it eventually because I imagine Riggs’ writing might improve on the second book, and it will seem less contrived if it’s based on plot development instead of photographs. 🙂