A review by roach
Francis of the Filth by George Miller

adventurous funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

As though by command, the clouds thickened and lowered and amidst a swirl of wind and matter, the dark lord appeared in his own sphere of composure, alighting beside Frank on the balcony of the apartment. Together they looked out over the landscape - the unnaturally colored skies over shadowed turbulent waterways, the traffic lights and neon signs now rendered dysfunctional, the people peeping out from behind curtains and the dogs howling. "Oh Chin Chin ga daisuki da yo," he spat in his twitching tones.

When George Miller decided to leave behind his edgy, offensive YouTube persona Filthy Frank, he wrote this novel as a final send-off of the character, stringing together loose pieces of the nonsensical lore, before moving on once and for all to a more dignified passion with his music as Joji.  
Past-me was definitely into the problematic humor of the Filthy Frank videos at the time and so I bought this book back in 2017 when it came out, all hyped up for the final hoorah. But I never actually finished it.  
Curiosity got me to dig it out of the shelf recently and see how it would be to read this thing way past the material's prime.  
  
I can definitely see why I didn't get too far into it in 2017 because the first 50 pages or so are really not very interesting with its rather annoying story of Frank's origin during an alternative WWII setting. But once that's finally over and the character begins to meet more of the characters of the show, travelling through different realms of the omniverse, it became much more engaging. The story is never very convincing or effective, but there is some creativity in the worlds and situations Frank experiences. Additionally, it's neat to recognize elements from the old videos that have found a spot in the storytelling of the novel somehow.  
  
The writing is done in a purposefully overly flowery prose to give it that tongue-in-cheek tone of an epic legend. Though it can get a bit annoying at points as that includes using unnecessarily big words and elaborate descriptions very often.  
On the other hand, this had much less offensive language than I expected it to. Yeah, there are the occasional ableist and racist slurs or misogynistic language, as that was an inevitable part of the humor in the original videos as well. But it actually shows up not nearly as frequently in this book. I was bracing for worse going in. lol  
  
In the end, this wasn't anything I'd remember in the long run or ever call a great read. But it was pretty entertaining for parts of it and reading it now, so long after Frank welcomed viewers to the rice fields the last time, was an interesting stroll down memory lane as well.  
That being said, I'm glad Joji found something else that's much more worthwhile to pour his talents in.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings