2.5/5 Stars
A mysterious drug called “Soy Sauce” opens a door for David Wong and his friend John to an otherwise unseen world in which bizarre, dangerous, and usually downright stupid looking creatures lurk around every corner. A series of strange events surrounding the Soy Sauce lead John and David further down a rabbit hole, in which they realize the world needs saving, and they’re the only two up for the job.. If they can get around to it.
I decided to illustrate the Wig Monster based on how it was described in the book as it was one of the more iconic creatures but also one that wasn’t too spoiler-heavy. There’s a lot of really cool, really bizarre imagery in the book, but illustrating it would have unfortunately I think given away too much.
I bought John Dies at The End after listening to a friend of mine and the internet sing its praises. I read the entire thing anticipating the moment where I would see what they saw, and then the book ended and I was still flailing around in the dark looking for the light switch.
John Dies at The End throws out a lot of questions to the reader that never really get concluded, at least not in a way that I found satisfying. Things build up only to unravel and never really go anywhere. It seems the book rests on the whacky situations John and David find themselves in and doesn't make an effort to solve the issues they raise or why certain things in the book happen. I suppose you could attribute that to the nature of the book, the essential message seemed to revolve around how random and inexplicable the universe is in general and how little the characters cared about explaining the situation they were in. But taking all of those issues into account, it still just seemed like lazy writing to me. I found the humor specifically to be pretty lazy. The humor is probably the part of the book that I had heard the most praise about, but the book relied on “LOL SO RANDOM” moments rather than actual good comedic writing. The lazy writing might seem excusable if you take the humble beginnings of the book, which started as a serial on a blog, but personally I don’t think that makes up for all of it.
John Dies at The End throws out a lot of questions to the reader that never really get concluded, at least not in a way that I found satisfying. Things build up only to unravel and never really go anywhere. It seems the book rests on the whacky situations John and David find themselves in and doesn't make an effort to solve the issues they raise or why certain things in the book happen. I suppose you could attribute that to the nature of the book, the essential message seemed to revolve around how random and inexplicable the universe is in general and how little the characters cared about explaining the situation they were in. But taking all of those issues into account, it still just seemed like lazy writing to me. I found the humor specifically to be pretty lazy. The humor is probably the part of the book that I had heard the most praise about, but the book relied on “LOL SO RANDOM” moments rather than actual good comedic writing. The lazy writing might seem excusable if you take the humble beginnings of the book, which started as a serial on a blog, but personally I don’t think that makes up for all of it.
I wanted to like John Dies At The End, it seemed like it had all the story elements I really like: monsters, psychedelic-supernatural-space-drugs, and a non-typical cynical protagonist. Unfortunately, these promising threads never really fit together in the end.
Read John Dies At The End:
best book ever
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