A review by thegoodmariner
Busy Monsters by William Giraldi

1.0

I made it exactly twelve pages into this book. I read the plot and really, really wanted to like it. It sounded like an A Lee Martinez story, who I love, and was compared on the back-cover review to Kurt Vonnegut, who I love even more. My question to whoever wrote that review is this: why do you hate Kurt Vonnegut? This book is written in the voice of a first-person narrator who I believe fancies himself quixotic and garbles the English language to do so. There are people who write, Bradbury, Vonnegut, Dick, McCarthy, and their are people who try to write. Who make it obvious that they are writing and trying to write something that will knock your socks off. That's what this book feels like - an essayist with some impressive accolades trying to write a story that you will like. Well, I didn't. I couldn't even get through chapter one. Now I'll go read Cat's Cradle to remind myself what writing actually looks like.