Besides being on the bestseller list, it came highly recommended to me by a patron at my branch who felt so strongly about it that she went to the shelf, brought it to me at circulation, and insisted I check it out immediately. I hadn't heard anything about this book before she placed it in my hands despite the praise it had received from the literati of the world. This book is a conundrum to me. It has been touted as an uproariously hilarious satirical take on race and culture in America. I'll agree with the latter part of that statement but I didn't find it funny in the least. In fact, I found that the 'jokes' were not at all to my taste. This is probably due to the amount of books on race and culture I've read over the last year but I just couldn't read this book without feeling thoroughly depressed at what felt almost hyper realistic. Now I made it halfway through this book so I feel like I got the overall gist and flavor of the thing. The narrator (name not revealed beyond the nickname BonBon) lives on a farm in the middle of a Californian ghetto called Dickens where you're more likely to see cows on the side of the road than a white person walking their dog. The book starts with him being called before the Supreme Court on an issue of dragging black people's progress back to the time of slavery...because he has a slave of his own. I don't know what this book was but I do know that I didn't like it and I have no intention of finishing it in the future. Progress: 145 out of 289 pages.

The Nine Lives of Frank Tipton (The Redn...

Audrey is so in love with Frank when he asks her to move in with him.  During their time together, the love fades quickly.  Now all Audrey wants to do is kill Frank, no matter who gets in the way.

This is one of the funniest tongue-in-cheek books I have read.  I laughed out loud as Audrey makes her plans as well as her reasoning behind each plan.  I could hear this as an audio book and can hear the drawl as the story is told.  This is dark humor at its best.  I plan on reading more of this series.

In the lottery of life, Bob Gage has won a dead cat, an ex – wife and a cancerous pancreas! After finding out he has cancer and was given a death sentence, Gage comes out swinging.

According to my brother, I only became funny once I started dying.

A year to live.

What would you do with the time left. Probably not what Gage does! I knew what he was going  to do, but not the way he would go about it and I love it. Sometimes the only way to see justice done is to do it yourself.

Cancer has a way of ruining a perfectly good murder.

Diarrhea’s what happens when you’re busy making deadly plans.

A humorous accounting of one man’s decision to take matters into his own hands. And the outcome is very surprising.

I never anticipated the creativity and originality Greg Levin displays creating these wonderful characters that jump off the page and into my heart with their willingness to step up, sacrificing their last days on earth to leave it better than they found it. They were drawn together by their disease and death and had a camaraderie many could never understand. Death kept them living.

The moral issues are addressed in a way some could find agreeable, others would condemn them no matter the why.  What would it take to make you kill? What about the social and moral repercussions?

I laughed at ‘Tumor Terrorism’, ‘Metastaside’, ‘The Stage Four Slaughters’. Why not go out with a sense of humor and a few laughs.

I empathized with the gang. I have always loved vigilantes, loved the Charles Bronson movies, but, after reading Sick To Death I find why vigilantism is so bad, even when it’s good. Where do you draw the line?

I received a free copy of Sick To Death from Greg Levin.

4 Stars

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Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #48: A Dystopia

Don't be discouraged by the fact that this book took me five months to read -- I was reading it on my Kindle, which is pretty much the "slow lane" to my book traffic. (I usually only read it in waiting rooms.) The writing style is accessible and it could be a "fast read," although it's up for debate whether it might be considered "light."

Like most of Atwood's dystopias, this one is thick with social commentary, particularly as regards to sex roles and the consumer packaging of sex. One of my friends gave up on the book halfway in because she felt like there was "too much weird sex stuff," and while uncomfortable in places, it is not purely gratuitous. The book is more dark satire than pure dystopia, so it calls for some suspension of disbelief as relates to the actual premise and the society that Atwood sets up. Atwood is making a point, not showing off her worldbuilding skills.

Still, while the men and women who populate this novel may read like caricatures at times, they are also uncomfortably recognizable. Stan and Charmaine are "average" folk who blunder into a surreal and twisted world during a time of desperation, and the piece ultimately ends up being a strange examination of marriage that manages to be both jaded and strangely hopeful.

I wouldn't recommend this as a first introduction to Atwood, as you almost need to have some familiarity with her work to take this one in context. But if you've enjoyed her in the past and don't mind a little humor in your dystopia or some major darkness in your comedy, you'll probably find this to be a satisfying enough addition to the Atwood science fiction canon.

Initial reaction: This is one of those books that could go easily either way: love or hate. I thought some moments were pure gold for dark comedy, and I was even laughing while I read this on my commutes. However, it had some issues pulling off the explanations for events. Plus, some moments in humored context didn't always work for me.

Full review:

"Kill the Boy Band" is a very interesting book I bought on a whim when I saw it in the book store. For one, the title screams "BUY ME!" The book jacket has the black background with pink lettering, while if you take the jacket off, it's a pink cover with black lettering that could pass for a fangirl's notebook. I was totally stoked about this being a dark humored parody of fandom culture. Even the blurb suggests that a group of girls encountering the least popular member of a popular boyband (The Ruperts, who you might as well say are a parody band of One Direction) goes in an absolutely horrible - and unintended- direction.

I would say after the entire reading experience that the execution of this is made of both great things...and not so great things. Dark humor can be difficult to execute well, because on one hand it has the potential to point out contradictions and ironies (which yes, this book did in several notations), but at the same time it may unintentionally be offensive depending on how it's expanded upon. The closest I can say this book comes with respect to its brand of humor is the Fox TV series "Scream Queens." If you've ever seen that series with its brand of horror comedy, that's exactly what you'll get in "Kill the Boy Band". Some iconic one-liners with some self-aware critiques and examinations included. Libba Bray's "Beauty Queens" did this as well, but I think "Beauty Queens" went over better for me as a whole because it covered a lot of ground and I clicked with it a little more (especially in Bray's own narration; that remains one of my favorite YA audio experiences.)

That's not to say that I didn't identify in spaces with "Kill the Boy Band." I've been a part of various fandom cultures for many years (yes, I've had the interesting experience of reading several RPFs.) Musical group fan culture isn't new to me, what with my love for certain J-pop/J-rock/K-pop groups. Ye Gods, I've been a part of that culture for a long time, it's kind of fascinating being able to reminisce about it. My experiences with Laruku included (I still faintly think HYDE could be the embodiment of a living vampire. His role in Moonchild with Gackt did not help dispel this theory back when I first watched the film in all its fandubbed glory. But I digress.)

So, the protagonist of this book - who often takes on the moniker of several 80s referenced heroines - is a part of a group of girls who are obssessed with the Brit boy band "The Ruperts". "The Ruperts" are all named that way because their first names are "Rupert" (designated from each other only by the first letter of their last name and their odd quirks. One of them doesn't even really sing, he just juggles during their live performances). They met on a reality show, a.k.a parody of One Direction. I'll admit that made me laugh with some of the details given for the band and how the protagonist profiled each of her friends and their various stats within partaking with the fandom.

Among the protagonist's friends are the curvy Chinese girl Apple (Oh bless Apple's fangirl heart that she frequently wanted to jump the bones of the Rupert she liked the most during a good part of this book - though the overt sexual humor really surprised me in places), Isabel (frequently curses in Spanish, she's Dominican), and Erin, the MC's best friend who has a really, really dark streak.

The four of them end up going to an exclusive event at the hotel which is rumored to be where the Ruperts are staying. Things go terribly wrong when Apple bumrushes one of the members of the band as he's at a vending machine, knocking him out. (My reaction: OMG!) Then she proceeds to drag him back to the girls' hotel room, where things quickly get complicated, including tying up the Rupert so that he won't "panic" when he wakes up (but of course he does), and things go downhill from there.

I could totally see this scenario happening in an anime series (*fangirl runs up to favorite boybander* "I LOOOOOOVE YOU" *smack* "CRAAAAAAP!"). And that's exactly how it plays out, in an over the top manner, but while the narrative has some decidedly lighthearted moments and snappy one-liners, it gets dark very quickly. Very, very dark. There were times I was laughing at the interactions, while others I was like "GIRL/DUDE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

The characters are quite stereotypical, sometimes in ways that I think both work with and undermine some of the self-aware and pondering humor that could be taken for plays on morality and spot commentary in awareness of fandom culture. Some of the humor is offensive, including notations on race, sexuality, body type, and disability - which is why I had mixed feelings on the novel because some of it I could feel/see the intention, but others I was like "Nah...that's really not cool in the way that it was shown." It's one of those novels that I could definitely see people either loving or hating it for the mere execution of it. I still think (and am a little sad that) this book didn't quite go in more fun and open directions given its awesome premise, but it has moments where it shines. I appreciated the bit references I could pull from, plus some of the banter between the girls and boys. I don't think there's really a single character that comes out of this scenario as likable because they're all inherently flawed and OTT. The way the book goes in terms of the plot (including how one of the Ruperts ends up dead, but who didn't see that coming?) has some interesting points, but I think it struggled to get to answering those questions in places. I actually kind of appreciated the ending, because it's an interesting punctuation and notation to fandom writing culture. I don't know if it really goes as far as it could have or is as keen as it put itself off to be, but I took it for what it was.

Still, this left me on the fence for the experience. I definitely liked parts of it, but others I really wish I had more takeaway. It wasn't the *hold my sides, laughing until I had tears in my eyes* experience that I was hoping for.

Overall score: 3/5 stars.

End Note: Laruku is the fan name for the Japanese band L'arc~en~Ciel, in case anyone doesn't get that reference. :)