Discussion Thread: JDatE Chapters 10 thru End of Book (Spoilers)

[Sheila (Damnyoureloud), Moderator]

Want to talk about the second half/full book of JDatE? This is the place to do it. Spoiler tags are not required. Enter and read posts at your own risk.

[Lauren]

Ok. I was hanging with this book until I got to the Korrok section. Just went downhill fast. In the Afterword, the author talks about how he started writing it as a sort of short story...he added to it in his free time. That clears things up a bit.

I liked the individual stories, but I thought they were sloppily tied together. I think it might have worked well in a journal format...the different stories as entries...hmmm...

Anyway, I wonder if the second book will be more cohesive. I am not sure I will read another one, though. I hear enough dick and fart jokes from my husband.

[Kristen (RAoA), Moderator]

I was bummed out in general by this book. To me - it was like seeing... I don't know, Picasso paint with my kids watercolor while cooking dinner and watching The Simpsons.

Best work? It can't be. There were too many hints of this brilliant, biting mind that made me so jealous... but there was SO much weighing this book down.

I personally really like comic-horror. I don't mind things like penis monsters. But I am older than the audience this book is probably geared towards so maybe I also got a little tired of the constant crassness... it's not that I have a hard rule about using poop as major part of plot (I liked Dreamcatcher even though I was a little squeamish, reading it after having some bad sushi was an unfortunate coincidence.) But I think that after the age of 12, so much emphasis on the 'gross' aspects of our biology just feels stale.

But I liked the book. I did. I feel like so many of the strange, weird analogies in it were breathtaking. The thought about viruses being around for millions of years, right, then we realize they are there, then we can study them, but they can't study us... and what else is out there that is simply not in our range of perception. I seriously had a head explosion moment trying to explain that to my husband.

All in all, this read like a smart storyteller was writing witty comments - a serial type story on reddit, probably while checking his email and making ramen noodles. This writer, of course, wrote to his audience - seeking to get that reaction of "zomg I can't believe you just wrote that" with every post. They someone cut them all and pasted them into a book.

Some tight writing, some loose writing, some flashes of brilliance, some seemingly unending pages of pure boredom.

All in all, I'd love to have lunch with John and Dave, though.

What did you guys think?

(edit for typos - my ipad has no keyboard and I'm clumsy as all get out.)

[Eve (revanche900)]

I overall enjoyed the book. I found the weirdness appealling, and the writing style fit the storyline, I felt.

Everything that happened was something that I hadn't foreseen. I was particularly surprised that the book ended and John was alive. :-)

I enjoyed the first half of the book, and thought that it could probably have stood on it's own. Also, I think it would make a killer comic/graphic novel.

My only criticism, really, is that in some places, I found it overly wordy. I'd skip sentences because I was too busy trying to find what happened next. That might be more of a "me" thing, though.

[Lauren]

Kristen (PaganPirate) wrote: "I was bummed out in general by this book. To me - it was like seeing... I don't know, Picasso paint with my kids watercolor while cooking dinner and watching The Simpsons.

Best work? It can't be..."

I agree - there were so many nice ideas and moments. Was it bad editing? I would like to read the next novel to see if it gets better, but maybe not...

[Lauren]

Eve (revanche900) wrote: "I overall enjoyed the book. I found the weirdness appealling, and the writing style fit the storyline, I felt.

Everything that happened was something that I hadn't foreseen. I was particularly s..."

I loved the creativity. What an imagination! I really felt like I was somewhere that COULD exist seeing things I never thought of. The author really did a good job of writing the main character's paranoia and fear. Those feeling were so real, I was really worried the book was going to cop out and say the dude was mentally ill.