What the Hell Did I Just Read (John Dies at the End 3): David Wong Paperback – 3 Oct. 2017

David Wong is a unique author with a unique voice. That is a very rare thing to say. Oh sure, reviewers throw out comparisons - horror writers like King or Lovecraft because of the portrayal of cosmic horrors lurking beneath the surface of small-town America, and Gaiman or Adams for deadpan descriptions of fantastical things, but...nothing quite covers it. Wong (Jason Pargin) is unique, and can write uniquely. Some authors can make you laugh, some can make you soil yourself, and some can do it in the same book; Wong can do it in the same sentence. And his setting really makes it, too - not for him the quaint New England environs of his horror ancestors, nor the agreeable London suburbs of his comedy forebears; Wong's 'John Dies At The End' novels (of which WtHDIJR is the third, and seriously buy the other two) take place in a mostly-derelict dead-end rust-belt meth town somewhere in middle America, and he makes the setting his own, grounding the narrative in verisimilitude both for the characters and the undercurrent of bubbling horror.

Of the four books David Wong has published this is probably the weakest. It’s still very good. His absurdist, making it up as he goes along stupid silliness is funny. It’s not big and it’s not clever, but it works for me. Basically you either like this stuff on first contact or you hate it. I can’t imagine there’s much middle ground. Read the Look Inside and you can tell if it’s for you after reading a paragraph or two. If you like Douglas Adams then you should enjoy David Wong.The ending was weak. It doesn’t bother me but the climax has issues.* It feels like he wrote himself into a corner and he didn’t have the inclination to write another fifty chapters to get out of it. The book is all about the ridiculous journey so the weak destination is not a big deal.Incoherence is built into these books. It moves along so fast with so much weird content that the bits that don’t add up get quickly forgotten. I’ve added a few bits of incoherence I can recall at the end of this review.** I think the answers to any questions is just that in the making it up as he goes along writing over many months, the various bits and pieces didn’t cohere and things weren’t edited out. It’s a sloppy piece of writing and editing, but that’s part of its charm. The messiness is not a bad thing. It might even be the point. There’s no benefit in thinking about these logic issues. It added up into a vaguely coherent story with a few rough edges. I was satisfied and entertained, and the weak climax made me shrug with indifference.* SPOILERS: They don’t actually stop the creature and its plans. At best they delayed it. So it’s not much of a climax.** SPOILERS: I remember Marconi physically fighting Joy Park before turning up at the mine, but this wasn’t referred to again and he and Joy Park were on good terms when they turned up. So what happened there? How did Joy Park end up living with John, and why? What was the purpose of all the concrete snowmen for the plot, specifically what did the one in Dave’s junk room do? Why did the NON organisation not load the sulphur shotgun when they put Dave in the room with the giant maggot?

Hands down. These books speak to me as a twenty something adult in our ever declining planet. It perfectly balances comedy, whacky fun and the ever creeping terror of existential dread. Mix in some monster mysteries and I am one happy dude. Honestly though, these books changed the way I view prose. It’s unconcerned with appealing intellectual and yet has some of the deepest insights about life and our universe that I’ve had the privilege of reading. Buy everything this man writes because I’ve read them all and they’re all bangers and mash baby!

I'm assuming that if you're reading reviews of this book, you've read the first two books in the JDATE series. If not, go and read them first.Initially I was disappointed to see a JDATE book with such a feeble, generic sounding title. But I'm a fan of Wong. A Wongonaut? A Wonga? A Wollower? Erm. Whatever. I endured. Such is my burden.It rather quickly earns its title. To the point that I don't really know what else it could accurately be called. Starting off as a simple kidnapping case, handed off to John and Dave because the [Undisclosed] cops want nothing to do with it. Things quickly get nutty from there. To the point that you're not sure what's actually happening. I mean, you know what's going on, just you're not sure if it actually is. Such is the strength of the writing.It's hard to get more precise than that. Every detail seems like a spoiler. However, it's frequently grim, twisted, and hilarious. Often all three at the same time. It continues the theme from the previous book about not being able to trust your eyes. Which only adds to the horror. I'm still not sure it's quite as horrific as invisible, brain-eating spiders. But what's eventually revealed to be going on, isn't nice. Not nice at all. Not one bit.There are chapters written by John ("John, keep your enormous c*ck out of this!") and Amy. If the book, and indeed the series as a whole, has any shortcomings, it's Amy. And no, not because she's an annoying woman who always gets in the way of the protagonist doing his protagonisting.I enjoyed reading her chapters (one in particular is perhaps the best in the book) and I like Amy. But they're more sombre than the chapters about the other two. It's hard to see her as more than a plot device to cause something to happen to Dave, or explain more about him. That's not to say she's not a fully fleshed out character. She is. But almost everything about her is used in some way or another to explain Dave. Which, makes sense in that it's a book about Dave. John is used in that way too. But it's not so obvious, because John's a wildcard and his narrative has more to do with the adventure than they do with his relationship with Dave. Amy isn't a wildcard. She certainly helps keep the book grounded and makes it seem more plausible. But because the story as a whole is so ridiculous, she sticks out a bit. It definitely doesn't detract from the novel as a whole and it's only a minor criticism.If you enjoyed the previous JDATE books, I've no doubt you'll enjoy this. I'd argue it's Wong's best book to date. Though I might need to reread 'Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits' before laying claim to that. Either way, it's been a pleasure seeing him develop as a writer over the past few years. I can't wait to read more from his diseased brain.

Kept me interested to the end of the book I love the way he writes and changes the story from paragraph to paragraph