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3.43 AVERAGE
3.43 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
CW: sexual exploitation, character death and gore
This book won’t be for everyone. It’s satire cushioned in a strange writing style that will either have you saying “man, this is dumb AF” or “holy fuck this is GENIUS” and there is legit no in-between.
I fall into the latter camp and I'll say that if you liked the film Idiocracy, give this a go, because it’s fucking great.
Munmun satirises the gap between rich and poor in America, using physical size as a representation and manifestation of wealth and privilege. It examines capitalist systems and systemic oppression, showing that it’s not enough to simply provide healthcare and education when the people who need it most can’t even get through the door.
This book examines privilege, systemic oppression, poverty, death, and sexual exploitation. I wish there’d been some nuance around POC and differently abled people (and there was some…..iffy language around a disabled character) but for the most part I really enjoyed this examination of capitalism in America.
While the concepts are complex and the writing style is strange, it definitely feels like a Jesse Andrews book. It’s laugh-out-loud funny and while the protagonist is 16 or 17 by the end of the novel, the voice reads a fair bit younger (as his books often do).
It won’t be for everyone, but I highly recommend giving this a shot.
This book won’t be for everyone. It’s satire cushioned in a strange writing style that will either have you saying “man, this is dumb AF” or “holy fuck this is GENIUS” and there is legit no in-between.
I fall into the latter camp and I'll say that if you liked the film Idiocracy, give this a go, because it’s fucking great.
Munmun satirises the gap between rich and poor in America, using physical size as a representation and manifestation of wealth and privilege. It examines capitalist systems and systemic oppression, showing that it’s not enough to simply provide healthcare and education when the people who need it most can’t even get through the door.
This book examines privilege, systemic oppression, poverty, death, and sexual exploitation. I wish there’d been some nuance around POC and differently abled people (and there was some…..iffy language around a disabled character) but for the most part I really enjoyed this examination of capitalism in America.
While the concepts are complex and the writing style is strange, it definitely feels like a Jesse Andrews book. It’s laugh-out-loud funny and while the protagonist is 16 or 17 by the end of the novel, the voice reads a fair bit younger (as his books often do).
It won’t be for everyone, but I highly recommend giving this a shot.
Munmun by Jesse Andrews is possibly one of the strangest books I have ever read. The concept of the novel is fantastic, it shows how being rich doesn't automatically make you a better person than those who are poor and that money (or munmun) doesn't always bring happiness. Sadly the execution of the idea is quite disappointing.
The narrative voice, Warner, is illiterate due to being littlepoor and unable to attend school, so the story is written phonetically a lot of the time, with many of the words running together into one. This made it incredibly difficult to read as I had to keep stopping to sound out words. Once I got midway into the story I got used to it but it still threw me on occasion.
Overall I enjoyed Munmun as it was a very interesting story, but I definitely deducted points for the strange spelling and grammar.
Many thanks to Allen & Unwin UK for my free copy of Munmun.
The narrative voice, Warner, is illiterate due to being littlepoor and unable to attend school, so the story is written phonetically a lot of the time, with many of the words running together into one. This made it incredibly difficult to read as I had to keep stopping to sound out words. Once I got midway into the story I got used to it but it still threw me on occasion.
Overall I enjoyed Munmun as it was a very interesting story, but I definitely deducted points for the strange spelling and grammar.
Many thanks to Allen & Unwin UK for my free copy of Munmun.
Munmun by Jesse Andrews is possibly one of the strangest books I have ever read. The concept of the novel is fantastic, it shows how being rich doesn't automatically make you a better person than those who are poor and that money (or munmun) doesn't always bring happiness. Sadly the execution of the idea is quite disappointing.
The narrative voice, Warner, is illiterate due to being littlepoor and unable to attend school, so the story is written phonetically a lot of the time, with many of the words running together into one. This made it incredibly difficult to read as I had to keep stopping to sound out words. Once I got midway into the story I got used to it but it still threw me on occasion.
Overall I enjoyed Munmun as it was a very interesting story, but I definitely deducted points for the strange spelling and grammar.
Many thanks to Allen & Unwin UK for my free copy of Munmun.
The narrative voice, Warner, is illiterate due to being littlepoor and unable to attend school, so the story is written phonetically a lot of the time, with many of the words running together into one. This made it incredibly difficult to read as I had to keep stopping to sound out words. Once I got midway into the story I got used to it but it still threw me on occasion.
Overall I enjoyed Munmun as it was a very interesting story, but I definitely deducted points for the strange spelling and grammar.
Many thanks to Allen & Unwin UK for my free copy of Munmun.
An excellent take on the entrenchment of class and privilege in our world, through a dystopia in which class is designated by physical size. "Scaling" up is possible, but only by amassing enough currency (MunMun) to pay for it. And for those at the tiny end of the scale, that is almost impossible.
The world Andrews builds is intricate, complex, and revealed through the narration of Warner. Luck and happenstance play a strong part. There's a rich family whose patriarch likes to use "littlepoors" to further his own political future, selling the idea that if just given a chance anyone can make it if they work hard enough. Warner, being an extremely bright teen, finds a way to game the system and make his own point, but then gives it all up in favor of love.
The style in which the story is laid out takes some getting used to; it is snarky, quick, conversational, and faithful to this new world, where words are often spelled phonetically, removed of consonants, and groveling is part of the language. I loved it.
This story left me thinking a lot about Warner's end decisions. What if he had gone through with his original plan? Would it have made a difference in the lives of the littlepoors? What exactly IS the answer to this problem?
In today's era of politics rife with racism, classism, and more, MunMun is a must read. Would love to see a HS book club tackle it.
The world Andrews builds is intricate, complex, and revealed through the narration of Warner. Luck and happenstance play a strong part. There's a rich family whose patriarch likes to use "littlepoors" to further his own political future, selling the idea that if just given a chance anyone can make it if they work hard enough. Warner, being an extremely bright teen, finds a way to game the system and make his own point, but then gives it all up in favor of love.
The style in which the story is laid out takes some getting used to; it is snarky, quick, conversational, and faithful to this new world, where words are often spelled phonetically, removed of consonants, and groveling is part of the language. I loved it.
This story left me thinking a lot about Warner's end decisions. What if he had gone through with his original plan? Would it have made a difference in the lives of the littlepoors? What exactly IS the answer to this problem?
In today's era of politics rife with racism, classism, and more, MunMun is a must read. Would love to see a HS book club tackle it.
A great prequel to society and great remarks about capitalism.
dark
funny
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Three stars for execution, infinite stars for ambition, so we're averaging, kind of. (This kind of work would not enable me to pass the Mathy exam.)
The concept is beyond brilliant: in the world of Munmun, a person's physical size is directly related to how much money they have. So the poor are rat-size and trying to not get murdered by animals or stepped on, and the rich are monstrous giants who gobble down whole herds of cattle and roasted hippopotami. Oh, but if the poor just worked harder, they could afford to size up!
*Poor people scurry and hide to avoid being mauled by a cat*
So lazy!
Anyway, the social commentary is razor-sharp, and Andrews moves imaginatively through the world he's created. However, the book suffers from having almost too many ideas at play: the characters all inhabit a shared dreamworld, which could pretty much sustain a whole book on its own. There's so much going on that some character moments don't quite land -- Kitty, for example, the protagonist's wealthy benefactor, comes across much more odiously than I think she's meant to. I loved that Andrews in no way paints her motivations as pure, or her as a saint, but the fact that Warner, the main character, still sees so much more in her than the reader makes some emotional moments not quite land. And if she's meant to be the unworthy Daisy to his Gatsby, that doesn't fully work either.
It's possible the narrative is trying to have it both ways. That seems to be the case with the question of whether this is meant to be a dystopia that evolved from our world, or an alternate universe. There are a frustrating amount of hints at the former without the point ever truly being made. I also really wish that Andrews hadn't copped out and made the skin tones of everyone in this world rainbow-hued -- as in literally, some people have purple skin or yellow skin or grey skin or orange skin (good throwaway Trump joke there though). I'm sure race just seemed like another complicating element in an already overly complicated book, but I'm sorry, ignoring it is a cop out when economic disparity is so tightly tied to racial inequality.
But despite its flaws, this remains a book that posits literally eating the rich as a real, viable option. I can't help but appreciate that -- in a big, big way.
The concept is beyond brilliant: in the world of Munmun, a person's physical size is directly related to how much money they have. So the poor are rat-size and trying to not get murdered by animals or stepped on, and the rich are monstrous giants who gobble down whole herds of cattle and roasted hippopotami. Oh, but if the poor just worked harder, they could afford to size up!
*Poor people scurry and hide to avoid being mauled by a cat*
So lazy!
Anyway, the social commentary is razor-sharp, and Andrews moves imaginatively through the world he's created. However, the book suffers from having almost too many ideas at play: the characters all inhabit a shared dreamworld, which could pretty much sustain a whole book on its own. There's so much going on that some character moments don't quite land -- Kitty, for example, the protagonist's wealthy benefactor, comes across much more odiously than I think she's meant to. I loved that Andrews in no way paints her motivations as pure, or her as a saint, but the fact that Warner, the main character, still sees so much more in her than the reader makes some emotional moments not quite land. And if she's meant to be the unworthy Daisy to his Gatsby, that doesn't fully work either.
It's possible the narrative is trying to have it both ways. That seems to be the case with the question of whether this is meant to be a dystopia that evolved from our world, or an alternate universe. There are a frustrating amount of hints at the former without the point ever truly being made. I also really wish that Andrews hadn't copped out and made the skin tones of everyone in this world rainbow-hued -- as in literally, some people have purple skin or yellow skin or grey skin or orange skin (good throwaway Trump joke there though). I'm sure race just seemed like another complicating element in an already overly complicated book, but I'm sorry, ignoring it is a cop out when economic disparity is so tightly tied to racial inequality.
But despite its flaws, this remains a book that posits literally eating the rich as a real, viable option. I can't help but appreciate that -- in a big, big way.
I wanted to read this before I realized it was by the same author that wrote Me, Jesse, and the Dying Girl (which I loved). This one I enjoyed, but not quite as much. The idea and plot of the book was really interesting, but I’m not sure it lived up to its full potential. The strung together words and phonetically spelled words made it a bit trickier to get through (especially at the beginning). The ending was a bit interesting and not quite how I imagined Warner acting and his actions seemed a little out of left field (but hey I’m not the author so what do I know). Overall, I liked it, but it definitely could’ve been more.
This book...sigh. It has an interesting concept: the more money and resources you have, the bigger you can become physically, with the poorest being the size of mice and the largest being taller than skyscrapers. However, it is executed...oddly. Everyone has a very strange way of speaking which makes deciphering the dialogue a challenge at times due to the various in-world slang, which requires a dictionary in the back to make sense of. Also, this is clearly a criticism of capitalism which wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that the metaphor came across ham-fisted and over the top. I dislike preachy books, and this book broke out a pulpit worthy of a Southern Baptist congregation. Confusing dialogue combined with irritating preaching made this book a struggle to finish; the only reason I pushed through was to meet my reading goal. Would not recommend unless you want a book to baffle and frustrate you at nearly every opportunity.