John Dies at the End by David Wong and Jason Pargin

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.

The book was okay. Entertaining in parts, but the author was trying really hard to write like Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide) and he really wasn't good enough to pull it off. Very original story though. There's supposed to be a sequel in the works, but I think I'll skip it.

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.