You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
One of my favorite authors & screenwriters, Nick Antosca, mentioned this book in a tweet or interview several years ago and it’s been on my to-read list ever since. When I saw it for $2 at a thrift store after finding it out of print everywhere else, I was thrilled! Koko shot to the top of my reading list. Woof. Big time regret.
While Peter Straub’s beautiful prose & poetic narrative cannot be denied, almost everything else about this book is meh at the best. Several of the main characters are cardboard cutouts, the presentation of women & female characters is shockingly sexist & bizarre, the presentation of non-white characters and cultures leans heavily on racist stereotypes, the plot meanders and is difficult to follow... The only other things I actually enjoyed about this novel were the themes on violence, war, and trauma that were buried in the detritus of the story and the open-ended finale. Koko suffers from a classic case of “famous writers don’t get notes.” A hawk-eyed editor could have certainly trimmed this weighty paperback into something far more digestible and engaging, but nope. Instead, it was a torment to get through. Time for me to move on to greener pastures!
While Peter Straub’s beautiful prose & poetic narrative cannot be denied, almost everything else about this book is meh at the best. Several of the main characters are cardboard cutouts, the presentation of women & female characters is shockingly sexist & bizarre, the presentation of non-white characters and cultures leans heavily on racist stereotypes, the plot meanders and is difficult to follow... The only other things I actually enjoyed about this novel were the themes on violence, war, and trauma that were buried in the detritus of the story and the open-ended finale. Koko suffers from a classic case of “famous writers don’t get notes.” A hawk-eyed editor could have certainly trimmed this weighty paperback into something far more digestible and engaging, but nope. Instead, it was a torment to get through. Time for me to move on to greener pastures!