Has anyone read this book*? I am about halfway through it (exactly 51%, according to my Kindle). I’m enjoying it, but I was surprised to find when I looked it up online that it was supposed to be a “comedic horror novel”. Well, it hasn’t exactly been a barrel of laughs, though I have laughed a time or two. Mostly I’m still not sure entirely what’s going on, and also whether I should believe the narrator or not.
Either way, it’s a fun, if surreal ride so far. Please, no spoilers about the ending (I am presuming that John does indeed die, but I don’t know anything else about the end) but any thoughts you might like to share are welcome!
*Yeah, I know, I’m always late to the party.
I really enjoyed it. Like you I didn’t laugh a lot, but it kept me entertained. I really should read it again, there were some parts I didn’t really get.
I read it a few months ago, but don’t remember it in detail. I know I wasn’t laughing while I read, but I was amused. And this is one of those books that’s about the journey, not the destination. So if you’re liking it, keep right on but don’t expect to be rewarded with a big scoop of meaning at the end.
(You know what I hate about my own writing? I have a bad habit of saying “Blah blah blah, *but *such and such”. Just look at that paragraph above! It sucks! And I’m not going to fix it.)
Loved it. Surreal and funny, but not in a ha-ha way. David Wong is a regular Cracked.com contributor as well. (He may even be an owner/admin, I’m not sure.) Supposedly, he’ll be writing another book. The story of JDATT is pretty interesting, too, if you’re interested- he wrote it as serialized online chapters, and had tons of editing input from early readers before getting a meat publisher.
Absolutely loved it. Read it twiceo nline and once as a book. It is a little disjointed, mainly from being written as a serial over a couple years, but I still think it’s great.
David Wong used to run pointlesswasteoftime.com, which mainly focused on crowd-sourced humor, including Photoshop contests, and the dearly departed daily Craptions (where a somewhat random photo is presented, and the site members create captions).
When Cracked.com broke from the dying (now defunct) magazine brand, they brought him on board as a managing editor and he took his content along with them (although Craptions were cancelled last year :().
This book caught my attention at the bookstore, with a blurb on the back comparing David Wong to “a cross between Stephen King & Douglas Adams”. So I checked it out from the library and gave it a whirl.
The very first sentence sucked me in:
“This is a small city, large enough to have four McDonalds but not so big that you see more than the occasional homeless person on the way.”
Told in first person by an unreliable narrator, this episodic tale of a small band of friends fighting against a nameless evil entity felt a little herky-jerky. It seems it was originally written in serial form on the internet, and then reworked for the novel. The style seems to work in favor of the story tho… it felt like a horror equivalent of the science fiction New Wave movement, somehow.
I can’t say I enjoyed the story - a little too gruesome and stark for my tastes, but it was compelling and while I might not revisit this particular novel again, I’d consider taking a look at whatever else Wong comes up with at some point.
I’m assuming you’re referring to the “Alternate Universe basketball game” part. My understanding is that he wrote that as a short story a couple years before JDATE, and then he rewrote it to include it in the book because he couldn’t figure out how to end it. I think it would’ve been better with out.
I’m curious about how the movie is gonna play everything out. The book is pretty much two loosely connected stories with one big frame story. There’s characters in each story that aren’t in the other one. But judging by the trailer it looks like they’re putting everything in there.
I’m not much for horror/scifi/zombie/etc. movies, but I sincerely hope this opens the door for more films from the minds of cracked.com. They’ve got some real comedic talent there. I will be first in line for tickets to seanbaby’s The Curious Case of Turbo Sexophonic.
This book is the second time in my life I’ve been able to say, “I’ve known about that forever. Where have you been?” I found it to be scarier online, actually, because as you were reading, eerie pictures would fade in from the white background and fade back out.
Still, I really like it, and I’ll be re-reading it as well as Lovecraft during my Annual October Spooky Read-a-thon. It’s got a different feel from most horror, it’s refreshing.
Possible spoiler, if you think the story is autobiographical (couldn’t tell from the OP):
John Cheese writes for Cracked as well, and his stuff is dark, twisted, and hilarious. Addiction recovery and abusive childhoods make for great comedy in the right hands.
I read it back when it was a free read on Pointless Waste of Time. I thought it was a lot of fun. I think some of the jokes were funny because I already knew the personalities of John and David from PWOT, without that frame of reference I’m not sure I’d have enjoyed it quite as much.
Huge JDATE fan. David Wong has a remarkable brain and a very unique voice as a writer. Can’t even believe there’s going to be a movie - and it looks like it doesn’t suck!
I found it to be scarier online, actually, because as you were reading, eerie pictures would fade in from the white background and fade back out.