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reader19861978's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence
skiddlebosh's review against another edition
Had to return the book to the library
zenithharpink's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 stars. I really, REALLY didn't enjoy this book. One full star of my rating is due to the originality of the premise. I really didn't know what to expect from this read, but I thought it would be a bit more light-hearted and less...gritty. This book didn't match what I was expecting/hoping for AT ALL.
I really didn't enjoy the prose, it was weird for the sake of being weird, and served no purpose. The word mash-ups were bizarre and annoying, and the ungrammatical sentence structure and misspellings made no sense to me. Here's a question I was forced to ponder: If you're illiterate, when you're thinking in a language, does your mind spell things incorrectly? I don't think it does. Mr. Andrews disagrees.
I found the plot to meandering, with violence and heartbreak inserted just to break up the monotony, but it didn't serve any actual purpose. The ending was unsatisfying on virtually every level, and none of the characters held any real appeal-partly because they were under-developed, partly because they were subpar characters.
I only recommend this book based on the originality of the premise. I think the story construction could have been a lot better, the characters could have been enhanced, and the context could have been much better explained. Read at your own peril, but I do believe it is worth reading. Once.
I really didn't enjoy the prose, it was weird for the sake of being weird, and served no purpose. The word mash-ups were bizarre and annoying, and the ungrammatical sentence structure and misspellings made no sense to me. Here's a question I was forced to ponder: If you're illiterate, when you're thinking in a language, does your mind spell things incorrectly? I don't think it does. Mr. Andrews disagrees.
I found the plot to meandering, with violence and heartbreak inserted just to break up the monotony, but it didn't serve any actual purpose. The ending was unsatisfying on virtually every level, and none of the characters held any real appeal-partly because they were under-developed, partly because they were subpar characters.
I only recommend this book based on the originality of the premise. I think the story construction could have been a lot better, the characters could have been enhanced, and the context could have been much better explained. Read at your own peril, but I do believe it is worth reading. Once.
dlberglund's review against another edition
4.0
What a weird book! Like reading MT Anderson's Feed, reading Munmun is a completely immersive experience. Our narrator Warner's rambling, slang-filled explanation of life as he knows it is both confusing and insightful, both frustrating and intriguing. And a lot of the time, just super weird.
It's a world where money = literal size. If you have enough money in your scale account, you can go to the bank and they will scale you up to the appropriate size. Get into debt? Smaller it is. Things like schools and hospitals don't get made for people the size of rats, so being poor is pretty horrible. Though I can't imagine it would be a picnic being the size of a barge, the 1% don't seem to mind.
Warner and his sister Prayer are likable enough, and some of their adventures are worth the investment. There were a few turns that I had a hard time sticking with, and I still can't decide if it's a fault of the writing or if it's just my personal taste.
Worth the read for the economic commentary and flashbacks to other books with characters the size of rats...
It's a world where money = literal size. If you have enough money in your scale account, you can go to the bank and they will scale you up to the appropriate size. Get into debt? Smaller it is. Things like schools and hospitals don't get made for people the size of rats, so being poor is pretty horrible. Though I can't imagine it would be a picnic being the size of a barge, the 1% don't seem to mind.
Warner and his sister Prayer are likable enough, and some of their adventures are worth the investment. There were a few turns that I had a hard time sticking with, and I still can't decide if it's a fault of the writing or if it's just my personal taste.
Worth the read for the economic commentary and flashbacks to other books with characters the size of rats...
anna_of_green_gables's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
mzdeb's review against another edition
2.0
DNF'd halfway through (I was listening to the audiobook.)
Maybe it was because Warner and his sister Prayer's circumstances kept changing so much--which, when you think about it, is a common predicament among society's poorest. And then I got to the point where things were suddenly looking up--not even halfway through the book--I thought "this is going to get worse, right? This won't last. God, if it gets worse again I'm going to be so pissed." And then I got busy and POOF went all desire to keep listening. Sorry :(
Maybe it was because Warner and his sister Prayer's circumstances kept changing so much--which, when you think about it, is a common predicament among society's poorest. And then I got to the point where things were suddenly looking up--not even halfway through the book--I thought "this is going to get worse, right? This won't last. God, if it gets worse again I'm going to be so pissed." And then I got busy and POOF went all desire to keep listening. Sorry :(
kirkw1972's review
3.0
Clearing another blog on my to-do list.
Another book I'm not totally sure about. I downloaded this with the idea that as people had been comparing to Douglas Adams there would be some humour in this but I didn't really spot that.
I got quite bogged down in the language and complexity of dream world and the characters themselves. I couldn't quite gel with the writing style but others may enjoy it. Possibly I'm not the target audience for this one.
Free arc from netgalley
Another book I'm not totally sure about. I downloaded this with the idea that as people had been comparing to Douglas Adams there would be some humour in this but I didn't really spot that.
I got quite bogged down in the language and complexity of dream world and the characters themselves. I couldn't quite gel with the writing style but others may enjoy it. Possibly I'm not the target audience for this one.
Free arc from netgalley
pizzabrot's review
5.0
ANNOUNCEMENT! Up next in our book review section: A love ode for Munmun by Jesse Andrew written by a speechless-with-awe Kathi, unable to convey her thoughts in a coherent and enjoyable pattern, yet still trying, always trying.
This book! THIS FREAKING BOOK! I can't believe I've never heard of it before, why isn't it more popular?! It's an actual crime, and one I'm very much determined to solve by writing this review. So attention attention, a HUGE amount of praise for this book is coming right acount the corner. It's really interesting how tastes differ; I actually skimmed a few reviews before reading, expecting them to make me totally hyped for it, but alas. I immediately found so many DNF's and now, in hindsight, those are just utterly inexplainable to me. How can you even put this book down, let alone decide to not even continue reading?! And all because of the (to me quite genius) writing style? I actually loved the idea of using spelling mistakes as a stylistic feature since the main character telling the story doesn't even have a freaking school education. It makes everything so much more realistic without being annoying at all! The humor in this book is to die for, if I ever manage in my life to be as funny as Jesse Andrews, I think I can die happily. The whole idea of linking physical height to amount of money is simply ingenious, and the execution absolutely blew me away. Warner is one of the most lovable protagonists I've encountered in a while, far from being perfect, full of the dumb decisions of a pubescent teenager and yet, again, it's all so very realistic! It's really hard for me to review books that I enjoyed THIS much because I feel like I can never do them justice. Nothing that I write could actually even remotely reach the perfection that Munmun was for me on a personal level. I wouldn't say I have much of a communist mindset (although my dad often belovedly calls me "little communist"), but there's definitely something wrong with the world when it comes to the often enormous (!) gap between the big super-richs and the having-nothing poors, and this book does a fabulous job critisizing society in a dystopian and yet so awfully familiar-feeling setting. A black mirror on its own, which is why the cover art is so absolutely fitting in that regard. Money that ultimately determines the entire worth of a person, isn't that a very familiar sounding problem? And yet Munmun is one of the few books that deals with it in such an amazing fashion. I can already say before even reading any other books in this year, that this will probably be my funniest read of 2019 (at the very least), it's absolutely brilliant. I have no criticism whatsoever; even though the ending took me some time to get used to. But I took some time to think about it and let it all sink in, and ultimately I can't find any more fitting way to end it. It's so anticlimatic and yet perfect at the same time, since real life doesn't follow any particular higher logics either. What a crazy and wonderful rollercoaster the entire plot of the book was. It's kinda got the feeling of being on a drug-induced journey and that's what I loved so much about it! Satire is my biggest weakness and this was done in such an unique and inspiring way that I cannnot help but stare at and think back to this book with the BIGGEST double-scale love-goggly eyes. True romance isn't dead!
Please, do yourself a favour and read the novel. It may take some time getting used to (didn't for me, but there are a lot of intentional spelling mistakes in this book because - again - the character is an illiterate 13-year-old boy and I imagine that can be bothersome to read at first, especially if English is your native tongue), but it's definitely worth it. Just be prepared for a lot of (wonderful) craziness coming your way! Did I mention how much I absolutely LOVED the whole experience? I suspect it was very easy to miss...
This book! THIS FREAKING BOOK! I can't believe I've never heard of it before, why isn't it more popular?! It's an actual crime, and one I'm very much determined to solve by writing this review. So attention attention, a HUGE amount of praise for this book is coming right acount the corner. It's really interesting how tastes differ; I actually skimmed a few reviews before reading, expecting them to make me totally hyped for it, but alas. I immediately found so many DNF's and now, in hindsight, those are just utterly inexplainable to me. How can you even put this book down, let alone decide to not even continue reading?! And all because of the (to me quite genius) writing style? I actually loved the idea of using spelling mistakes as a stylistic feature since the main character telling the story doesn't even have a freaking school education. It makes everything so much more realistic without being annoying at all! The humor in this book is to die for, if I ever manage in my life to be as funny as Jesse Andrews, I think I can die happily. The whole idea of linking physical height to amount of money is simply ingenious, and the execution absolutely blew me away. Warner is one of the most lovable protagonists I've encountered in a while, far from being perfect, full of the dumb decisions of a pubescent teenager and yet, again, it's all so very realistic! It's really hard for me to review books that I enjoyed THIS much because I feel like I can never do them justice. Nothing that I write could actually even remotely reach the perfection that Munmun was for me on a personal level. I wouldn't say I have much of a communist mindset (although my dad often belovedly calls me "little communist"), but there's definitely something wrong with the world when it comes to the often enormous (!) gap between the big super-richs and the having-nothing poors, and this book does a fabulous job critisizing society in a dystopian and yet so awfully familiar-feeling setting. A black mirror on its own, which is why the cover art is so absolutely fitting in that regard. Money that ultimately determines the entire worth of a person, isn't that a very familiar sounding problem? And yet Munmun is one of the few books that deals with it in such an amazing fashion. I can already say before even reading any other books in this year, that this will probably be my funniest read of 2019 (at the very least), it's absolutely brilliant. I have no criticism whatsoever; even though the ending took me some time to get used to. But I took some time to think about it and let it all sink in, and ultimately I can't find any more fitting way to end it. It's so anticlimatic and yet perfect at the same time, since real life doesn't follow any particular higher logics either. What a crazy and wonderful rollercoaster the entire plot of the book was. It's kinda got the feeling of being on a drug-induced journey and that's what I loved so much about it! Satire is my biggest weakness and this was done in such an unique and inspiring way that I cannnot help but stare at and think back to this book with the BIGGEST double-scale love-goggly eyes. True romance isn't dead!
Please, do yourself a favour and read the novel. It may take some time getting used to (didn't for me, but there are a lot of intentional spelling mistakes in this book because - again - the character is an illiterate 13-year-old boy and I imagine that can be bothersome to read at first, especially if English is your native tongue), but it's definitely worth it. Just be prepared for a lot of (wonderful) craziness coming your way! Did I mention how much I absolutely LOVED the whole experience? I suspect it was very easy to miss...
ashra's review against another edition
5.0
LET'S MAKE EACH OTHER WEAK. i am never going to financially recover. i love this book with my entire soul. it will ruin you but it will be necessary