Spider’s Book Review : “You Suck – A Love Story” by Christopher Moore

You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

A decent, funny read for when you really want something light and fast to go through – something for when you just need a change from whatever else you tend to normally gravitate toward, literary-wise.

I saw a lot of praise for Moore’s comedic writing and was on the lookout for them for a while, but it was only fairly recently that I got my hands on two of his books, this being one of them. Now this is the first of his books I’ve read and gotta say, I’m a little torn.

Basically, the book follows on from a previous book, (something I didn’t know at the time!) following the story of Thomas C. Flood (our “hero”) and the love-of-his-life girlfriend Jody – who is a vampire. And she’s made him one too – though bear in mind, all this is established before the book starts and we enter the story just after Flood has been made into a ‘creature of the night!’. There’s also an emo-goth-girl-vamp-wannabe, a bunch of drunken, crazy homeless guys with pets, an ancient evil vampire, a crew of drunk and drug-loving party Animals, a pair of pathetic cops and… well a blue woman. Yes, you read that right. She’s blue. For real. Let’s let that sink in and then move along, shall we?

Anyway, there’s misadventures aplenty and lots of oddball moments and zaniness sprinkled throughout this narrative. Ordinarily, this would be exactly my kind of thing – insane and seemingly pointless, but highly entertaining and actually quite clever in the way it’s put together. The problem however, is (and this is where the “I’m torn” thing comes into play!) as follows:
While Moore clearly has a great sense of humour and satire and there is cleverness to the way he’s constructed a story-line that keeps you guessing and surprises you constantly as you go along, it didn’t hold. Not that the story fell apart, it ties up at the end fairly well and all that. But it’s the in-between bit that lost me somewhere. Can’t quite put my finger on it, the first third of half of the book was great, but somewhere after that and especially the last third of the book felt like it was being drawn out and not in a good way. There was a feeling of floundering a little, of some repetitiveness of running gags/style/something that made me lose interest to the point where somewhere right near the end I was reading just to get to the end. It got better and still had moments that were shine-worthy and were clever and interesting, but they were not sufficient. Perhaps being the 2nd part of a trilogy, there were things that had to wait, something unfinished, lacking, that will all work better once you read part three – but that’s never a good sign in a story if you ask me.

Not really for everyone I’d say, but a good read that should provide some much-needed levity and entertainment for anyone who likes cheekiness and smart-ass humour. Good concepts and decent execution are what save this book for me and it’s Moore’s style that is the only real reason I’d recommend this to anyone.

Next in the “funny” stack of books, I’ve got his more praised title “Practical Demonkeeping” which is actually looking to be far more promising.

Cheers all!