A review by thebustadotjpg
Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by Jason Pargin, David Wong

dark funny tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Really torn on how to rate this. I’ve been a fan of Jason Pargin for over ten years now, and his pieces for Cracked.com were a huge influence on my writing style. I’ve been wanting to check out his fiction novels so I picked this one as my starting point because of my love for the genre.

There’s good stuff in here. This book reads like a funnier, more juvenile Ernest Cline with a dash of Douglas Adams, if you can imagine such a thing. At times I thought it got a bit too juvenile, but I have to admit I laughed a lot at some of this stuff, especially toward the end. I’m not above some jokes about boobs, butts, and farts. I thought the Blink social media was remarkably prescient and it was fun to see a fairly accurate prediction of modern streaming culture in a book from ten years ago. I also want to point out that the first 10% of this is superbly written. The beginning is such a strong hook, but I wish it kept up that pacing for the remainder of the story. There are glimpses of greatness here and there, but nothing else here quite measures up to the way this story begins.

I think my problem with this book is that it’s so ridiculous and unserious, but there are also some weirdly serious moments that are such abrupt tone shifts. Some of the characters (Will in particular) have startlingly dark backstories involving sex trafficking and war crimes, which seemed very out of place in a book where the bad guy is partially defeated by Mexican restaurant delivery drones. Don’t even get me started on the amount of r**e threats the female protagonist gets, which has to be nearly two dozen over the course of the novel, along with anecdotes about her actual sexual assault and a couple instances of sexual harassment from various male characters. I get that the people saying and doing these things are supposed to be prejudiced and unsympathetic, but it’s not something I enjoy reading about in what is supposed to be a humorous story. I could’ve been okay with it if Zoey was portrayed as a strong, capable female protagonist, but she hardly ever takes initiative when fighting the bad guys and lets her goofy idiot mostly all-male sidekicks do pretty much all of the work while they use her as bait. There isn’t really anything that endears me to her either. She’s constantly spouting off rude quips and she’s not particularly funny or likable. She’s constantly berating the male characters while never actually coming up with her own plans. It’s like there was a point trying to be made about sexism but it’s never really addressed.

I can lightly recommend this to anyone who likes absurd humor and wants to turn their brain off and read something silly, but I hesitate to do so because its flaws are super hard to overlook. 2.75/5.
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