Tome Tuesday #1 - You Suck: A Love Story

Is there an echo in here?

You may remember reading a few weeks ago that I've decided to throw my hat in the ring and read a book a week for a year as part of the Cannonball Read project at Pajiba... well I neglected to notice that it didn't start until 11/1.

Oh.

So, to answer your unasked question, yes you *have* seen this post before, and yes you're also probably hallucinating too.

Crack is whack!

"You Suck: A Love Story" by Christopher Moore.



I picked this up, admittedly, because the cover and title amused me.

I probably would have enjoyed it more if I'd known this was a sequel to Moore's first vampire novel, "Bloosucking Fiends" and read that first, but somehow I doubt it because it wasn't so much an "I'm lost" dislike that comes from dropping in at the middle as it was a "he phoned it in" feeling.

Our story begins with C. Thomas Flood (Tommy) waking up to find he's been turned into a vampire by his girlfriend Jody.

"You bitch! You killed me! You suck!" says he...

... and wackiness ensues. That's about it.

The whole book just seemed too thrown-together for my taste, less a series of events that relate to each other and more a bunch of episodes of bad judgment and miscommunication tossed at a wall, and those events that stuck made it into the final draft.

My main problem with the whole thing was that just didn't find myself sympathetic to any of the characters. I don't know about you, but that's essential to me being able to have any interest in what's going on. Tommy & Jody just seemed whiny, Jody's "maker" is boring and one-note and more lecherous than evil, and Tommy's n'er-do-well grocery-store employee friends generally just seemed like a pack of assholes with no ability to function as adults and who instead make knee-jerk bad decisions that perhaps a fan of "Jackass" might find hilarious, but which just irritated me. (It's subjective of course - I don't begrudge you enjoying Johnny Knoxville giving himself another concussion, it's just not my cup of tea.)

Plus, there's a blue hooker. Why?

The one exception to me not caring about any of the characters was Abby Normal, a human teen with goth tendencies and a dirty mouth. Her diary entries throughout are hysterical, typical "OMG" teen-talk peppered with the purple prose I remember so well from my very own black-clad youth - even there, though, the schtick is used so often here that it gets tiresome after awhile.

This one's getting donated to the library - someone else might enjoy it, but it wasn't my favorite. Give it a shot if you've read "Bloodsucking Fiends", but if not...

Pass.

Since I usually like Christopher Moore (a good recommendation: "Practical Demon Keeping") I wondered if it was just me, but a quick perusal of the Amazon reviews seems to support the theory that this wasn't his best work... then again lots of people loved it, so who am I to say? I'm no critic.

Happy Tuesday!