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A review by pizzabrot
Munmun by Jesse Andrews
5.0
ANNOUNCEMENT! Up next in our book review section: A love ode for Munmun by Jesse Andrew written by a speechless-with-awe Kathi, unable to convey her thoughts in a coherent and enjoyable pattern, yet still trying, always trying.
This book! THIS FREAKING BOOK! I can't believe I've never heard of it before, why isn't it more popular?! It's an actual crime, and one I'm very much determined to solve by writing this review. So attention attention, a HUGE amount of praise for this book is coming right acount the corner. It's really interesting how tastes differ; I actually skimmed a few reviews before reading, expecting them to make me totally hyped for it, but alas. I immediately found so many DNF's and now, in hindsight, those are just utterly inexplainable to me. How can you even put this book down, let alone decide to not even continue reading?! And all because of the (to me quite genius) writing style? I actually loved the idea of using spelling mistakes as a stylistic feature since the main character telling the story doesn't even have a freaking school education. It makes everything so much more realistic without being annoying at all! The humor in this book is to die for, if I ever manage in my life to be as funny as Jesse Andrews, I think I can die happily. The whole idea of linking physical height to amount of money is simply ingenious, and the execution absolutely blew me away. Warner is one of the most lovable protagonists I've encountered in a while, far from being perfect, full of the dumb decisions of a pubescent teenager and yet, again, it's all so very realistic! It's really hard for me to review books that I enjoyed THIS much because I feel like I can never do them justice. Nothing that I write could actually even remotely reach the perfection that Munmun was for me on a personal level. I wouldn't say I have much of a communist mindset (although my dad often belovedly calls me "little communist"), but there's definitely something wrong with the world when it comes to the often enormous (!) gap between the big super-richs and the having-nothing poors, and this book does a fabulous job critisizing society in a dystopian and yet so awfully familiar-feeling setting. A black mirror on its own, which is why the cover art is so absolutely fitting in that regard. Money that ultimately determines the entire worth of a person, isn't that a very familiar sounding problem? And yet Munmun is one of the few books that deals with it in such an amazing fashion. I can already say before even reading any other books in this year, that this will probably be my funniest read of 2019 (at the very least), it's absolutely brilliant. I have no criticism whatsoever; even though the ending took me some time to get used to. But I took some time to think about it and let it all sink in, and ultimately I can't find any more fitting way to end it. It's so anticlimatic and yet perfect at the same time, since real life doesn't follow any particular higher logics either. What a crazy and wonderful rollercoaster the entire plot of the book was. It's kinda got the feeling of being on a drug-induced journey and that's what I loved so much about it! Satire is my biggest weakness and this was done in such an unique and inspiring way that I cannnot help but stare at and think back to this book with the BIGGEST double-scale love-goggly eyes. True romance isn't dead!
Please, do yourself a favour and read the novel. It may take some time getting used to (didn't for me, but there are a lot of intentional spelling mistakes in this book because - again - the character is an illiterate 13-year-old boy and I imagine that can be bothersome to read at first, especially if English is your native tongue), but it's definitely worth it. Just be prepared for a lot of (wonderful) craziness coming your way! Did I mention how much I absolutely LOVED the whole experience? I suspect it was very easy to miss...
This book! THIS FREAKING BOOK! I can't believe I've never heard of it before, why isn't it more popular?! It's an actual crime, and one I'm very much determined to solve by writing this review. So attention attention, a HUGE amount of praise for this book is coming right acount the corner. It's really interesting how tastes differ; I actually skimmed a few reviews before reading, expecting them to make me totally hyped for it, but alas. I immediately found so many DNF's and now, in hindsight, those are just utterly inexplainable to me. How can you even put this book down, let alone decide to not even continue reading?! And all because of the (to me quite genius) writing style? I actually loved the idea of using spelling mistakes as a stylistic feature since the main character telling the story doesn't even have a freaking school education. It makes everything so much more realistic without being annoying at all! The humor in this book is to die for, if I ever manage in my life to be as funny as Jesse Andrews, I think I can die happily. The whole idea of linking physical height to amount of money is simply ingenious, and the execution absolutely blew me away. Warner is one of the most lovable protagonists I've encountered in a while, far from being perfect, full of the dumb decisions of a pubescent teenager and yet, again, it's all so very realistic! It's really hard for me to review books that I enjoyed THIS much because I feel like I can never do them justice. Nothing that I write could actually even remotely reach the perfection that Munmun was for me on a personal level. I wouldn't say I have much of a communist mindset (although my dad often belovedly calls me "little communist"), but there's definitely something wrong with the world when it comes to the often enormous (!) gap between the big super-richs and the having-nothing poors, and this book does a fabulous job critisizing society in a dystopian and yet so awfully familiar-feeling setting. A black mirror on its own, which is why the cover art is so absolutely fitting in that regard. Money that ultimately determines the entire worth of a person, isn't that a very familiar sounding problem? And yet Munmun is one of the few books that deals with it in such an amazing fashion. I can already say before even reading any other books in this year, that this will probably be my funniest read of 2019 (at the very least), it's absolutely brilliant. I have no criticism whatsoever; even though the ending took me some time to get used to. But I took some time to think about it and let it all sink in, and ultimately I can't find any more fitting way to end it. It's so anticlimatic and yet perfect at the same time, since real life doesn't follow any particular higher logics either. What a crazy and wonderful rollercoaster the entire plot of the book was. It's kinda got the feeling of being on a drug-induced journey and that's what I loved so much about it! Satire is my biggest weakness and this was done in such an unique and inspiring way that I cannnot help but stare at and think back to this book with the BIGGEST double-scale love-goggly eyes. True romance isn't dead!
Please, do yourself a favour and read the novel. It may take some time getting used to (didn't for me, but there are a lot of intentional spelling mistakes in this book because - again - the character is an illiterate 13-year-old boy and I imagine that can be bothersome to read at first, especially if English is your native tongue), but it's definitely worth it. Just be prepared for a lot of (wonderful) craziness coming your way! Did I mention how much I absolutely LOVED the whole experience? I suspect it was very easy to miss...