Rating: 4/5

Book cover

David Wong, John Dies at the End (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010).

David Wong is the pen name of Jason Pargin, senior editor at Cracked.com . If you’ve never visited the site, and you’re OK with a little coarse language, check it out. You will laugh out loud.

This book is a fascinating cross between the “weird fiction” of H. P. Lovecraft and Cracked.com humour. Parts were so creepy but interspersed with spurt-beverage-out-your-nose moments of laughter. I got a real kick out of it. It may not be for everyone. It can be quite graphic. There is some coarse language, and a good chunk of the humour could be classified as puerile, but I really enjoyed it. Given that I spend much of my day reading dry geology reports and legal documents, perhaps it’s not that hard to entertain me :) If you like this genre, then you will definitely enjoy the book.