Reviews

The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure by Jack Pendarvis

sisteray's review against another edition

2.0

I really tried to figure out the appeal. I like the ideas that he has. I wanted to be on board with his whole vibe, but it just wasn't doing anything for me. I mean he pushed some cool bits of writing into new ways to deliver them to readers, but my problem was that I just never thought any of it was funny and he clearly was trying.

Maybe that's on me. I just feel like I read better banter like this from my friends on Facebook, and they deliver the laughs. Most of the time it just felt depressing.

At best, parts of the book are like a moderately clever McSweeney's post. Likely this is for fans of Confederacy of Dunces or something.

keef's review

4.0

Clever and brilliantly constructed. This is a collection of short stories-- most of them are intentionally written from the point of view of narrators who can't really write, an idea which sounds terrible in theory but which is incredibly hilarious in execution. I wanted his new novel, "Awesome," but they only had this-- which I enjoyed quite a bit.