You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
bonnybonnybooks 's review for:
The Last Days of Jack Sparks
by Jason Arnopp
Jack Sparks is a narcissistic "journalist" who writes books about his (mis)adventures digging into various topics, like gangs and drugs. After getting out of rehab (without getting clean), Jack decides to write a book debunking the supernatural. His first experience is with an exorcism in Rome, where he laughs at the priest trying to get a demon out of a young girl. Too bad for Jack that the supernatural does exist and there is a very real demon possessing the girl - and the demon is pissed off at Jack laughing about the situation. So the demon decides to destroy his life.
This book is a little bit mixed media, as it is allegedly the publication of Jack Spark's final book - Jack Sparks on the Supernatural as edited by his estranged brother Alistair. Jack Sparks disappeared/died before the book was published, so the book is rounded out by emails and interviews to give more context to what Jack chronicled. It also includes Alistair's footnotes "correcting" the record.
I loved the mixed media and it really highlights how much of an unreliable narrator Jack is in his book- Alistair and Jack have very different views about their childhoods, and Jack misdirects and lies in his writing, as pointed out by the interviews of other people who experienced the events of this book. I wish Arnopp had leaned into this more, as there was not enough of it in the novel.
Jack Sparks is - and is supposed to be - an unlikable, self-destructive, rude, vain jerkwad. He feels like an aging rocker who has gotten away with saying whatever is on his mind without real consequence, so he continues to get trashed and trash others. Given that Jack's generally insufferable, it's hard to feel bad that terrible things are happening to him. Unfortunately, there are a lot of innocents caught in the crossfire.
This book leaned a little too heavily into the gore for me. I am also unsure about the internal logic of the supernatural in this world. Demons are real and really possess people - but why? To sow chaos? Because they're bored? They can control people far away and go backwards and forwards in time - and send others backwards and forwards in time. Can they do this normally or only when possessing people? Also, ghosts can also have similar powers? And demons/ghosts do not have to obey the laws of physics? Because there is no mythology presented in the story, it felt like anything could happen. The demon's (and her ghost minion's) powers were too inexplicably diverse and strong and it made me the reader feel unmoored from the story.
I did like in the end
This book is a little bit mixed media, as it is allegedly the publication of Jack Spark's final book - Jack Sparks on the Supernatural as edited by his estranged brother Alistair. Jack Sparks disappeared/died before the book was published, so the book is rounded out by emails and interviews to give more context to what Jack chronicled. It also includes Alistair's footnotes "correcting" the record.
I loved the mixed media and it really highlights how much of an unreliable narrator Jack is in his book- Alistair and Jack have very different views about their childhoods, and Jack misdirects and lies in his writing, as pointed out by the interviews of other people who experienced the events of this book. I wish Arnopp had leaned into this more, as there was not enough of it in the novel.
Jack Sparks is - and is supposed to be - an unlikable, self-destructive, rude, vain jerkwad. He feels like an aging rocker who has gotten away with saying whatever is on his mind without real consequence, so he continues to get trashed and trash others. Given that Jack's generally insufferable, it's hard to feel bad that terrible things are happening to him. Unfortunately, there are a lot of innocents caught in the crossfire.
This book leaned a little too heavily into the gore for me. I am also unsure about the internal logic of the supernatural in this world. Demons are real and really possess people - but why? To sow chaos? Because they're bored? They can control people far away and go backwards and forwards in time - and send others backwards and forwards in time. Can they do this normally or only when possessing people? Also, ghosts can also have similar powers? And demons/ghosts do not have to obey the laws of physics? Because there is no mythology presented in the story, it felt like anything could happen. The demon's (and her ghost minion's) powers were too inexplicably diverse and strong and it made me the reader feel unmoored from the story.
I did like in the end