What Hides Within. Written by Jason Parent.

Reviewed by Thomas Purser.
I received a free copy of What Hides Within in exchange for this review.

What Hides Within is an extremely well written, darkly humorous observation of the human condition in the modern world. Go out and buy it now before the press runs dry.

The dark humour and scathing snapshot of people’s lives is right up my street.

I really can identify with what author Jason Parent is saying about our lives and the way we attempt to navigate a path through an increasingly manically hilarious, ocean of stupidity, arrogance and utter absurdity.

To some degree or other, Jason Parent’s characters are all traumatised by modern life and exist in two places simultaneouslyThe first place is the chaotic and inane physical world outside their heads.The second place is the chaotic and inane world inside their heads.

Clive, the main character is having an experience inside his head that can’t be explained by the insane and barbaric physical entity known as modern medical science, with its tick box fixation that dictates whether one is insane or not.

Through his characterisations, Jason Parent is reminding us that we live in a cognitively constricted and increasingly dumb society, and if we were to let go of this epidemic of dumbness, we might discover the world we live in is not as linear as we have been led to believe.

Although the themes Jason Parent addresses are serious and tragic, What Hides Within is written from a caustically funny (and I mean very funny!) perspective and at no time is the novel overbearing or preachy in its tone.

The pace and continuity are all moving in the same direction. In other words there are no sudden surprises or unexplained and totally disorientating twists in the plot. When characters die in What Hides Within, they stay dead.

I will conclude the review by reaffirming what I said in the introduction,What Hides Within. It’s a superb, thought provoking novel that is hilarious and thoroughly entertaining.

I highly recommend it. So rush out and by a copy now. You won’t be disappointed.
What Hides Within[bookcover:What Hides Within|15828555