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devonforest's review against another edition
4.0
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.
sleepless_sam's review against another edition
2.0
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.
bergelicious818's review against another edition
1.0
Thank you to Goodreads and Amulet Books for hosting a giveaway for this ARC of MunMun!
MunMun was an extremely disappointing read and definitely not the book for me. After reading the synopsis, I was super excited! It's a great concept, the idea that your wealth directly impacts your physical size is not something I've seen before. I thought that this books focus on two of the books smallest citizens could make for a very interesting plot. The problem is, there was no plot.
The beginning of MunMun focuses on Warner and his sister Prayer, two of the poorest class of citizens, the Littlepoors. They are about the size of rats, with no munmun (money) to their names, their father having been stepped on and crushed to death by a bigger citizen and their mother having been permanently crippled by a cat. Warner and Prayer set out to find a way to scale up, that is, get more munmuns to increase their physical size. But honestly, that's really it. Things happen in the story, but its not really following any sort of plot or storyline, rather the reader is just kind of drifting along, following the life of Warner the Littlepoor. I absolutely hated this aspect of the book, as it made the story feel flat and pointless. The book had two different "worlds", dreamworld and lifeanddeath world. Dreamworld had the potential to be really interesting, but it wasn't really explained very well. In addition, the book was divided into sections, which also seemed pretty pointless to me.
As far as characters go, the story focuses heavily on Warner and his development, as he is around 13 when the story begins and in his mid to late 20s when the story ends. His development is complex and interesting, which I appreciated, but the trade off for this is that the side characters were all extremely flat (with the exception of Prayer, who exhibited some development, but not much).
The other thing I couldn't stand about this book was the way it was actually written. Littlepoors are not given an education. Since this book was from Warner's point of view, it reflected that. The only problem is that the writing completely takes the reader out of the story, forcing the reader to try to decipher what is actually being said or talked about. For example, there are frequent mentions of Yewess being the country that they live in. If you think about it for a second, this is obviously the U.S., but if you are just reading, you don't immediately understand this. Other things like "Eat" (east), "Wet" (west), again drawn the reader out of the story. Some characters are even described as actually saying "lol" or "lmao", which was very odd. The book frequently had words conjoined together for no apparent reason, such as "kidjail" and "familydinner", which, again, destroyed the flow of the story.
Long story short, MunMun had a cool concept and did provide some great commentary on wealth in society and how the poor are treated compared to the rich. That was the only aspect of this story that I really enjoyed. The world building, character development and writing style felt flat, underdeveloped and awkward, and unfortunately, destroyed the potential this book held.
MunMun was an extremely disappointing read and definitely not the book for me. After reading the synopsis, I was super excited! It's a great concept, the idea that your wealth directly impacts your physical size is not something I've seen before. I thought that this books focus on two of the books smallest citizens could make for a very interesting plot. The problem is, there was no plot.
The beginning of MunMun focuses on Warner and his sister Prayer, two of the poorest class of citizens, the Littlepoors. They are about the size of rats, with no munmun (money) to their names, their father having been stepped on and crushed to death by a bigger citizen and their mother having been permanently crippled by a cat. Warner and Prayer set out to find a way to scale up, that is, get more munmuns to increase their physical size. But honestly, that's really it. Things happen in the story, but its not really following any sort of plot or storyline, rather the reader is just kind of drifting along, following the life of Warner the Littlepoor. I absolutely hated this aspect of the book, as it made the story feel flat and pointless. The book had two different "worlds", dreamworld and lifeanddeath world. Dreamworld had the potential to be really interesting, but it wasn't really explained very well. In addition, the book was divided into sections, which also seemed pretty pointless to me.
As far as characters go, the story focuses heavily on Warner and his development, as he is around 13 when the story begins and in his mid to late 20s when the story ends. His development is complex and interesting, which I appreciated, but the trade off for this is that the side characters were all extremely flat (with the exception of Prayer, who exhibited some development, but not much).
The other thing I couldn't stand about this book was the way it was actually written. Littlepoors are not given an education. Since this book was from Warner's point of view, it reflected that. The only problem is that the writing completely takes the reader out of the story, forcing the reader to try to decipher what is actually being said or talked about. For example, there are frequent mentions of Yewess being the country that they live in. If you think about it for a second, this is obviously the U.S., but if you are just reading, you don't immediately understand this. Other things like "Eat" (east), "Wet" (west), again drawn the reader out of the story. Some characters are even described as actually saying "lol" or "lmao", which was very odd. The book frequently had words conjoined together for no apparent reason, such as "kidjail" and "familydinner", which, again, destroyed the flow of the story.
Long story short, MunMun had a cool concept and did provide some great commentary on wealth in society and how the poor are treated compared to the rich. That was the only aspect of this story that I really enjoyed. The world building, character development and writing style felt flat, underdeveloped and awkward, and unfortunately, destroyed the potential this book held.
aelong1399's review against another edition
4.0
Took me longer than I had hoped to finish this one (life gets in the way, you know?) BUT I thoroughly enjoyed it.
All the classic, weird Jesse Andrews humor you love from Me & Earl and The Haters, plus the book version of his angry tweets at Donald Trump and other first degree shitheads.
The satire is obvious and biting. Yeah-capitalism really does treat the poor like they're rats deserving of being crushed by the rich. Others have criticized the role of sexual assault in this book. Is it pretty horrific? Yes, absolutely. But is it also a pretty good representation of what happens when young women are forced into sex trafficking? Also YES. ABSOLUTELY.
I'll admit that Dreamworld is not a perfect parallel to our world, but it does certainly play a huge role in driving the plot and making a point (closer to the end) about how corporations exploit people for money.
In short-it's good. Very good. But definitely comes with a content warning for sexual assault and human trafficking.
All the classic, weird Jesse Andrews humor you love from Me & Earl and The Haters, plus the book version of his angry tweets at Donald Trump and other first degree shitheads.
The satire is obvious and biting. Yeah-capitalism really does treat the poor like they're rats deserving of being crushed by the rich. Others have criticized the role of sexual assault in this book. Is it pretty horrific? Yes, absolutely. But is it also a pretty good representation of what happens when young women are forced into sex trafficking? Also YES. ABSOLUTELY.
I'll admit that Dreamworld is not a perfect parallel to our world, but it does certainly play a huge role in driving the plot and making a point (closer to the end) about how corporations exploit people for money.
In short-it's good. Very good. But definitely comes with a content warning for sexual assault and human trafficking.
retiredlibrarylady's review against another edition
1.0
I did not enjoy this book. While the premise (your size and thus your power depend on your wealth), there are too many problems. How does a giant impregnate a woman half his size? If there are so many littlepoors and they have the vote, why don't they have any power? There are some really gross moments (Giants pooping in the ocean), but the sex is not explicit. There is strong language. Fans of dystopian literature may enjoy this, but it's not as exciting as most of the genre. The ending is satisfying in a dark way.
alongreader's review against another edition
3.0
This is a difficult book to rate. It's a brilliant idea, cleverly done, but I didn't like the main character much and I found the dialect hard to follow. That's largely me, though, I've never been good at dialect.
The book was compared to Douglas Adams so I was expecting humour, but there isn't any, really. There's no real explanation of the dreaming stuff, either.
An interesting concept, but not for me, sadly.
Receiving an ARC did not affect my review in any way.
The book was compared to Douglas Adams so I was expecting humour, but there isn't any, really. There's no real explanation of the dreaming stuff, either.
An interesting concept, but not for me, sadly.
Receiving an ARC did not affect my review in any way.
gabiloue's review against another edition
2.0
I was so excited to read this book when I first heard about it! I thought the idea of having your literal size be dictated by how much money you own to be brilliant and a great outlet for social commentary. While the book was definitely an effective commentary, it was also wildly disappointing.
The writing was very odd and while I understood why it was written the way it was (full of bad grammar, made up words, and misspellings due to the uneducated narrator's voice), it just never really connected with me. I hated all the characters and the plot was just weird. It was unpredictable, but not in the "wow, I can't believe that just happened, didn't see that coming!" kind of way, but in the "uh okay so this is what we're doing now, okay," kind of way.
That being said, the world of "Munmun" was a very creative way to establish a satire on our current society, and however weird the writing and plot were, the book definitely got its point across.
The writing was very odd and while I understood why it was written the way it was (full of bad grammar, made up words, and misspellings due to the uneducated narrator's voice), it just never really connected with me. I hated all the characters and the plot was just weird. It was unpredictable, but not in the "wow, I can't believe that just happened, didn't see that coming!" kind of way, but in the "uh okay so this is what we're doing now, okay," kind of way.
That being said, the world of "Munmun" was a very creative way to establish a satire on our current society, and however weird the writing and plot were, the book definitely got its point across.
lmee739's review against another edition
2.0
This was the strangest book that I've ever read and I think I'm still processing it.
seang81's review against another edition
3.0
This was a strange book to read - I had it on my Goodreads list for over 2-years and finally got a copy but i'm not sure whether I like it or not. Marketed for YA but a little dark, a great premise but i'm not sure about the writing style. All in all, an interesting read and something i'd probably say was best suited for the mid-late teens rather than me!