Jimmy Time

by Mandy Zeller

In Mandy Zeller's debut novel, Jimmy Time, you are introduced to Jimmy - a young man who has lived a hard life. And things are about to get harder. After a super-powered moped journey, Jimmy finds himself in a strange, carpeted world of attack-gnomes, agoraphobic dentists, and mad scientist clowns. Will he and his new friend,Tony the pigman, find their way out of danger? Will Jimmy ever achieve his goal of becoming a blacksmith? Or will his dreams (and body) be crushed by Ronzilla - the vengeful dinosaur with a man's head?

124 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2013

About the author

Mandy enjoys knitting and watching horror movies. Sometimes she writes silly books.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the writing style and word choice appealed to me, i found the lack of character development bothersome. I was a little disappointed that Jimmy didn't change his ways and that there was no real ending to the search for Steffy. I thought the book seemed a little scatter-brained and better descriptions but all in all, it wasn't a terrible book.

[Nicholas Karpuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't recall why I have Jimmy Time on my eBook. It's presence is as inexplicable as an Herbalife teleportation explosion, a thing which actually happens more than once over the course of this book (facilitated by Rockstar energy drink.)

There are two things that I'll give a book a lot of leeway to if it contains: Good pacing and imagination. Jimmy Time manages to pull off both of these, making any other issues it might have seem like a lesser concern. The less I suffer in the act of reading a book, the more forgiving I tend to be.

I'm generally impressed when I can tolerate an unlikable protagonist. Zeller seems to almost revel in not giving Jimmy a "save the cat" style moment for the audience to find relatable. He represents the worst case scenario of guys who've been allowed to remain in arrested development and never had anything inside themselves that motivated them towards anything. The only similar character I can think of that fits a similar mold is Ignatius J. Reilly from a Confederacy of Dunces. It's a damn weird group.

There are bits of dialogue that seem a bit forced, some adjectives that probably should have been cut, and a few plot threads I wouldn't have minded some follow up on, but it wasn't boring, and I don't think that counts for enough with readers.

[Christel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to review this. Zeller has an extremely fertile imagination and whimsical style, and many parts of the book read like a fever dream, but ultimately it was disappointing. The protagonist (definitely not hero) is an amoral sociopath with a very messy life that is his fault, but like any good sociopath he blames it all on others and says he has such a hard life. Yet he keeps getting break after break - all undeserved - right until the end where I was expecting a punchline that would resolve this. There was no character growth, no insights into why people treated Jimmy as well as they did (I'd have kicked his butt to the curb) and some plot lines just were dropped like the search for Steffy. Zeller should keep writing but plot and character development will need a lot of work. If she had a message, it wasn't one I could tease out.