Scan barcode
A review by hidekisohma
Who P-p-p-plugged Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf
4.0
So I've pretty much always liked the Roger Rabbit movie. To that end, i read the original book the movie was "based off of" (i use quotes because the book was hardly ANYTHING like the movie) and i found it pretty decent if not RADICALLY different.
Being that the premise of the first book was investigating roger's murder you'd think it would be pretty hard to write a sequel starring him. Well, this is where it got interesting.
It looks like the author basically decanonized the first book and instead wrote this book as if it were a sequel to the movie. and, to be honest, it was probably the better decision to make. The first book, while interesting, didn't quite have that feeling of the movie, and this book i feel captured it way better.
The plot of this book is basically 3 people are up for the gone with the wind rhett butler role (including Roger) and a box goes missing where roger is suspected to have stolen it. you don't learn until MUCH later what's in the box, but that's getting into mega spoiler territory so i won't say it here.
Also, Roger thinks Jessica might be cheating on him and wants Eddie to find that out as well.
Along the way we meet Jessica's sister who basically looks like her except she's a reporter and she's only 6 inches tall (hence the picture of her on Eddie's shoulder on the cover) and Eddie's sister Heddy.
This isn't a spoiler since it happens in the first 5 pages, but basically if you were hoping for an extension of the romance between eddie and the girl from the movie, too bad, they break up right in the beginning of the book.
If i had to give my biggest nitpick of the story it would be the writing. Holy sweet baby jesus does this guy love his hard boiled metaphors. I feel like he over exaggerated it almost as a parody to show the reader how silly they are, but my GOD were there a lot of them. stuff like "he had more beans than jack and twice the length to climb his way out" just to make something up off the top of my head. it was basically an entire book full of that. I read a lot of Noir-esc paranormal detectives so i have a VERY high tolerance for that kind of thing, but even i was like "jesus man. okay, we can calm down a bit."
Other than that, i found myself enjoying the story quite a bit. Roger was way more in character with the movie Roger than the first book (what little you see of him in the first book) and the mystery in itself was quite enrapturing. like i actually CARED what was in the box.
The ending was a bit of a mixed bag for me. about 20 pages before the end you think it's going to end pretty badly, but one of the two things that could have ended badly saves itself at the last second. the other doesn't, but one does, and considering how often i get things i want in endings in books (which is hardly ever) i'll chalk 1 out of 2 as a super win.
All in all, i enjoyed this book, and i will be reading the third and what appears to be final book in the series.
the book is a 3.5 out of 5 and I was flip flopping for a long time on whether to give it a 3 or a 4. However, due to the fact that the ending did me a solid and gave me something i wanted, i'm going to tip it to a 4 since i can't do halves here.
3.5 out of 5 rounded up to a 4.
Being that the premise of the first book was investigating roger's murder you'd think it would be pretty hard to write a sequel starring him. Well, this is where it got interesting.
It looks like the author basically decanonized the first book and instead wrote this book as if it were a sequel to the movie. and, to be honest, it was probably the better decision to make. The first book, while interesting, didn't quite have that feeling of the movie, and this book i feel captured it way better.
The plot of this book is basically 3 people are up for the gone with the wind rhett butler role (including Roger) and a box goes missing where roger is suspected to have stolen it. you don't learn until MUCH later what's in the box, but that's getting into mega spoiler territory so i won't say it here.
Also, Roger thinks Jessica might be cheating on him and wants Eddie to find that out as well.
Along the way we meet Jessica's sister who basically looks like her except she's a reporter and she's only 6 inches tall (hence the picture of her on Eddie's shoulder on the cover) and Eddie's sister Heddy.
This isn't a spoiler since it happens in the first 5 pages, but basically if you were hoping for an extension of the romance between eddie and the girl from the movie, too bad, they break up right in the beginning of the book.
If i had to give my biggest nitpick of the story it would be the writing. Holy sweet baby jesus does this guy love his hard boiled metaphors. I feel like he over exaggerated it almost as a parody to show the reader how silly they are, but my GOD were there a lot of them. stuff like "he had more beans than jack and twice the length to climb his way out" just to make something up off the top of my head. it was basically an entire book full of that. I read a lot of Noir-esc paranormal detectives so i have a VERY high tolerance for that kind of thing, but even i was like "jesus man. okay, we can calm down a bit."
Other than that, i found myself enjoying the story quite a bit. Roger was way more in character with the movie Roger than the first book (what little you see of him in the first book) and the mystery in itself was quite enrapturing. like i actually CARED what was in the box.
The ending was a bit of a mixed bag for me. about 20 pages before the end you think it's going to end pretty badly, but one of the two things that could have ended badly saves itself at the last second. the other doesn't, but one does, and considering how often i get things i want in endings in books (which is hardly ever) i'll chalk 1 out of 2 as a super win.
All in all, i enjoyed this book, and i will be reading the third and what appears to be final book in the series.
the book is a 3.5 out of 5 and I was flip flopping for a long time on whether to give it a 3 or a 4. However, due to the fact that the ending did me a solid and gave me something i wanted, i'm going to tip it to a 4 since i can't do halves here.
3.5 out of 5 rounded up to a 4.