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I can’t remember how I came across this book. It either came up in my recommendations at Amazon.Com, or showed up as another link while looking at another book there. What grabbed my attention was the book cover and title. (I know, you should never judge a book by it’s cover.) I clicked the link to see if it was in fact a novel and what it was about. So glad I did.
Here is the description listed at Amazon.Com:
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Thomas Friesen has three goals in life. Get a job. Make friends. Find a good book to curl up with. After landing a job at READ, the newest hypermegabookstore, he feels he may have accomplished all three.
All is not peaceable within the stacks, however. Discontent is steadily rising, and it is aimed squarely at Munroe Purvis, a talk show host whose wildly popular book club is progressively lowering the I.Q. of North America.
But the bookworms have a plan. Plots are being hatched. The destruction of Munroe is all but assured. And as Thomas finds himself swept along in the maëlstrom of insanity, he wonders if reading a book is all it’s cracked up to be.
If you’ve ever thrown a book against a wall in disgust; if you’ve ever loved a novel that no one else can stand; if you obsess over the proper use of punctuation; this may be the novel for you. A weirdly funny story about bookish addictions, “Shelf Monkey” is the ideal novel for anyone who loves good books. Or hates them.
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There is more to it then that. There is Thomas’ own past, as a school kid, but one of those book smart boys that got picked on. He is having issues dealing with his past even before joining the crew at READ, given that he was actually a lawyer before. It plays a big part in who Thomas is, as well as the other characters.
The last part of the description from Amazon makes it more like a review, but is very true. For those die-hard readers out there that cringe at Dan Brown outselling Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, and Edward Abbey combined, this is something you should enjoy.
The book is a mix between dark comedy and satire. It works really well together, especially given the subject of the story. There were times while reading that I couldn’t help but laugh out loud, and other times when I was shocked at what was transpiring. Some of the characters, which Redekop even seems to point at in the ending pages of the book, seem to be there to fill the spaces needed. But again, with the nature of the story, they work. They aren’t deep. They are there to propel the magic of the story. The four main characters however are well drawn out, though I found Thomas a little uneven at times. He waffles back and forth about what they are doing, but usually gives in. It could be seen though as a personality trait. Given his past, he fights with what he wants: revenge or piece of mind. In that case it really works. His piece of mind though is also the sense of reason, saying that what they are perpetuating is very wrong. It could be a link to Redekop giving respect to those that do author books. No matter how bad they may be, it is still a lot of work, and not something that anyone can do.
One of the blurbs on Redekop’s site about the book seems from someone that is not a traditional reviewer (it is credited to evondran), but makes a very funny, and probably very realistic comment about the book.
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If Dave Eggers and Chuck Palahniuk were to molest Max Barry in some way, he probably would have produced a novel similar to Shelf Monkey.
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It is filled with the type of satirical humor that Barry concocts. But Redekop takes it much further, in my opinion, to strange new heights. And again, the fact that good books are the subject of the plot, it makes it even more enjoyable for me.
“Shelf Monkey” isn’t the best book I have ever read. But surely it is the most entertaining I have read that has much merit against those other great authors and books.
8/10
