Reviews

The Job of the Wasp by Colin Winnette

aylith's review against another edition

I couldn't bring myself to be even slightly invested in any of the characters

ahlisa's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Some of the prose was nice and there was some dry humor in there that I liked. But wow this kid is dumb and it's a drag to have to read him totally misunderstanding the situation all the time.

cathybruce208's review against another edition

3.0

It was creepy and sort of infuriatingly vague, since we are in the hands of a classic unreliable narrator (or ARE WE?) Anyway, I think the book is well paced and interesting,

Spoiler

but I would venture to guess that its ending will irritate more people than it will satisfy.

I think most people will have different ideas about whether or not the narrator is a ghost or psychotic or just a terrified boy trying to survive. I personally think he is a ghost and that all of the occupants of the school are ghosts, reliving the same last year, over and over.

But I could be wrong...

chillcox15's review against another edition

4.0

Colin Winnette delivers a fast-paced, ethereal piece of weirdo lit with this novel, about a fat little orphan (or is he?) caught up in a murder mystery (or is it?) in the boarding school/orphanage (or is- actually that's pretty much what it is) he just arrived at (or DID HE??). Winnette's mastery over tone comes into full focus here by providing the reader with a pointedly unfocused universe in which nothing seems fully tangible or completely real. A good read.

bellygames's review against another edition

4.0

This has to be the strangest book I've read in a while, and I really liked it. It's billed as a Gothic horror, but I find it really difficult to pin down exactly what category this fits in.

Part ghost story, part murder mystery, part weird creepy romp through a boy's school with an unreliable narrator. Just about the time I was flying through a chapter thinking I had a handle on what was happening, I'd realize I had no idea at all. I'm still uncertain what that was all about.

The narrator goes off on long tangents, and that gets old fast. I think the good outweighs the not so good here and recommend this to anyone looking for something unsettling and different.

georgesreads's review against another edition

3.0

Gothic, surreal and frankly bizarre, The Job Of The Wasp by Colin Winnette, is very much a book you can judge by its cover. I'm not sure how I can sell this to you as a reader- it's just plain weird. From the strange but beautiful prose, to the completely mercurial plot, to the even more unpredictable and volatile characters- it is weird.

I liked it.

The book comes in at just over 200 pages, so is a fun way to spend an evening- if your idea of fun is rocking yourself back and forth on the floor wondering what you just put yourself through. We begin when our narrator is "welcomed," to his new "home." The headmaster offers no false pretences about the orphanage, promising only survival- not comfort. As he meets his new cohabitants, he finds that he feels unwelcomed, unable to fit in, and an ominous sense of dread and despair. That's before he finds his teacher's corpse hidden in the garden- the first of many casualties.
The narrator himself is SO complicated, constantly losing and regaining my trust. Is he unreliable? Yes. No? perhaps. To be completely honest I'm still processing- a lot happens.

If Samanta Schweblin rewrote Philip Fracassi's "Boys In The Valley," whilst high on prescription drugs, this would be the result. I mean this in the best way possible, whether or not you enjoy the process, you NEED to know what's going on and HAVE to get to the end. It's an addictive page turner, which pushes the boundaries of the genre.

waclements7's review against another edition

3.0

This is an odd, surreal novel narrated by an unnamed boy (Ashley?) whose voice doesn’t sound in the slightest like a boy. He is a wandering, introspective, paranoid narrator sure he has everything figured out in his new odd type of orphanage. It’s set in an undisclosed time but feels like the past. This new boy doesn’t fit in and second guesses any overtures at kindness. The other boys ignore him. The narration is at times slightly annoying, because he is _so_ much in his head and investing in theories that turn out to be incorrect. His relationships with the boys rapidly deteriorates as bodies begin to surface and they seem to believe him responsible. This is a disjointed, disturbing story. It kept me interested, even though I was often confused as to what was going on, but I think the narrator was as well, so that’s part of the whole point. It’s one of those books that while I’m not sure I liked it, I think it’s going to stick with me, which means it connected at some level even if I’m unsure of it.

figgylove's review against another edition

3.0

This book was okay but lacked character and plot development. Many threads left incomplete in the end. Still have lots of questions.

evelynsky's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Meet the eerie, dangerous, psychological cousin of Lord of the Flies.

This book grabbed me from the moment I saw its strange cover and didn't let me go until I finished it a day later.

Like a rollercoaster, I was pulled in so many directions of thought and plot, I could predict nothing-- not its genre, not its plot twists, and certainly not its baffling ending that has me still thinking about it two years later.

lizfran's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

3.5