Disorderly

by Jayme K.

At what lengths will one man go to retain a second chance at life? Colton Reznik, a man diagnosed with stage-4 brain cancer, had begun preparing for an untimely demise when fate shined its light upon him. After unexpectedly entering remission, he soon realizes that there are macabre repercussions that come with defying the odds and living well. To protect his livelihood, Colton must commit reprehensible acts of violence in order to satisfy whatever it is inside him that is keeping his tumor at bay.

Genres: Fiction, Horror

362 pages, Hardcover

First published June 10, 2013

About the author

Jayme Karales (b. 1990) is the author of the novel Disorderly. His writing has been published by UnHollywood, Thought Catalog, Underground Books, Before Sunrise Press, W.I.S.H. Poetry, Miracle E-Zine, Nostrovia! Poetry, The Horror Zine, and Your Daily Subvert. He lives in Boston.

Reviews

[Susana · Rating 1 out of 5]

And the novel continues...

EDIT REVIEW:
Okay so a certain "idiot" (well 2 idiots) decided that it wasn't enough to call me a hypocrite because i wasn't in awe of his "masterpiece". I'm not even going to comment on the "mommy brigade" tirade....because *i don't think the word mom means what you think it does*. Maybe you'll want to check that out...amongst many other things.

His revolutionary masterpiece.
You know where you can find more of this crap? Neanderthal land...check it out.

This is the latest rant of this "ethical" person:

Over the past 2/3 days I’ve had three of my books’ pages on GoodReads bombarded with complete dunces. People who’ve reverted to calling me ‘misogynistic’ and ‘racist’ because my collaborator Joel publicly noted the shortsightedness in one woman’s review of my novel Disorderly. She had failed to realize that the book was deliberately written from the perspective of one of society’s worst cretins and Joel pointed that out.

So, now i'm short-sighted. Okay...

This is how the author, our ethical and honest person decided to fight back. This are his words:

So here’s what I’m willing to offer to you, my kind followers.

If you help rebel against the influx of 1 star reviews by rating it yourself with 5 stars, or leave a review protesting the emotional and intellectual maturity of these complete morons, I will give you a free book. You can read the book, and once you’ve read it—if you feel like changing your rating—feel free. No harm no foul.

But for now I need to even out the scores of these books to where they once were and right my reputation on GoodReads and I cannot do that alone. There are about 30 of these ignoramuses and GoodReads has done nothing despite many flagging their comments.
http://captaincoolasfuck.com/post/809...

I've been nothing but honest with this piece of...writing that i forced myself to finish!
I NEVER, EVER MENTIONED THE AUTHOR!
The one who keeps drawing parallels between the cannibal (our main character) and the author, is the AUTHOR.

Which any literate person can comprove for his/herself.

So, after long consideration, i decided that i'm not comfortable in maintaining the previous two stars that i gave to this book. Basically because i'll never ever recommend this crap to anyone. And according to GR's guidelines, a two star rating means "okay".
This was not okay for me.
There.
Anything else to tell me?

Oh, yes, FURTHER TROLLS ATTACKS WILL BE REPORTED!
I'M NOT YOUR MUMMY TO PUT UP WITH YOUR NONSENSES.
GROW UP.



Arc provided by the publishing house in exchange for a honest review

Disorderly is the story of a man in his late twenties who has been diagnosed with brain cancer in the last stage...
Now, this is nothing new on the literary world, right?
Hum, however I can't say the same thing about what follows...

More than appreciated for its story, this tale is something to be thoroughly analyzed for its provocative and extremely generous use of clichés used to characterize modern society.

The writing is fluid and engaging, proving that if the writing is good enough, one can read almost about anything... even while secretly wishing that the main character has a violent death to put us out of our misery.

Colton is the definition of a toxic personality. He's demanding, controlling, manipulative, misogynistic, racist, xenophobic... wait, there's more... self-absorbed, detached (psychopath), basically an egotistical bas... I mean... character...

Told in a definite woman hater tone (I'm curious about the number of people who will notice this), Disorderly shows us a world where, through the main character eyes, all women are bitches, c*****ts, basically a "sexual outlet to plug my dick into.." (pg 73)

Disorderly is a book that, if a woman has a few working brain cells, she will have a hard time to... I would say swallow, but I'm afraid that in such a case _ mind in the gutter and sex obsessed _ this could be poorly understood in this story...
....strong feelings of rage and disbelief may follow while reading it. Because I have never, ever read a story featuring such a disgusting excuse for a human being (is he a human being or just a bunch of functional organs?)
So if that was the author's purpose, I congratulate him on that. If besides that, Colt is supposed to embody what goes on in the mind of the modern man of our day (who doesn't remember how women were represented in series such as The Sopranos?) well, I'm seriously considering becoming an hermit...

Warning: The following text may incite strong feelings... maybe it would be best if you'd keep some distance from your electronic devices...

Here are a few examples of how women are described in Colton's fantasy land:

And I couldn’t help but notice the curves of her body—the way those jeans hugged her ass and thighs.
My god, that ass.
I knew that ass. I knew it like the back of my hand. Supple, like two hams stitched together and thrown into a pair of tight pants. It was the kind of ass that one might mistake for having belonged to a black girl. Or at least a chubby Cuban. I’d have recognized it anywhere.

“And worse than my parents going out of their way to invite somebody that burned me, that hurt me to my God damn core and ruined my life, she had the nerve to show up—wear some slutty
outfit(..)"

Ah, us women and our slutty outfits...
Burkhas, just give us burkhas...

Knowing her stubborn, cunty self, (pg 73)

She was a nice lady, older, somewhat attractive but too motherly to fuck. (pg 79)

“You know that cunt of a mother of yours?" (92)

Then there were the Racist comments:
“Yep, he was a brown fucker,” (pg 73)

"I hope he's not black."

"olive-skinned gentleman with a buzz cut and a tattoo of a cross on the side of his neck." (pg 120)

"The Latino gent turned to me and said, “Yo, man.”(121)

"“Shit, nigga, I can barely read—let alone write."(122)

Then, there's the xenophobic remarks:

Break that fuckin’ stupid ginger-Jew nose of hers. Bitch.” (143)

“Some bitch that isn’t doing her race any favors by disproving the ‘angry black woman’ stereotype.” (158)

Misogynistic:
Tricia was never particularly fond of me, for one reason or another. (99)

“Have you been messing around with loose women?” (112)

Loose women. I suppose their willingness around a man who could be mistaken for having syphilis would be a testament to just how “open” they truly were" (263)

Bottom line: Nothing negative (UGH!) to point regarding the writing. The theme, well kudos for his imagination...

This book, well it will be loved or hated, depending on who reads it...probably some will adore it, and others will hate it.

Myself...well diplomatically speaking, this isn't my cup of tea.

[Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm Asian. I'm female. I'm not a privileged white man who feels like the world is his oyster for the raping plucking (and then thank him afterwards for the honor).

Based on Susana's and Isa's wonderfully analytical reviews, I don't think I'm the appropriate audience for this book. I'm not in the mood for racism. I'm not in the mood for misogyny. And if the very first page of the book feels the need to tell me that I'm too stupid to understand when the narrator is being sarcastic, then I'm not going to be interested in the rest of it.

[Isa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was given a copy of this book by the publisher for review. My review of this book was not influenced by this.

The thing is, when I checked the publisher’s site it said:
“A visionary new publishing house that provides a voice to young talent and markets notable transgressive literature.”

And that is SO cool!

But here’s the thing, I tend to see transgression as a way to break the norm, to rebel, to incite thought and action.

And the main character of this book (apart from the cannibalism, but even that, what with the recent Hannibal revival craze, is questionable…) just seems to comply with the norm. Everything he does is from atop that great pedestal of white male privilege.
You know the usual story: white male protagonist in his 20’s, who feels out of sync with the rest of the world, and is so misunderstood, etc. etc. It’s all over the best-sellers’ lists.
The transgression here is that he just adds racism (un-PC, but really, the silent norm) and misogyny (ditto).
So we meet our 29 year old protagonist, a writer “trying to make it”, who wastes his time on tumblr (I’m sure that won’t seem dated at all in a few years…) trolling Bennyhill Chasemusic Benedict Cumberbatch’s fangirls.

But wait, he’s kind of deep, because he had cancer and he’s now in remission - and I felt for him, I really did, I thought, “Hey, I’m really in a great position to empathise with this character, since I, too, had a brain tumour.”
Wow, was I wrong.

I have nothing to point out when it comes to the book’s writing, it’s perfectly fine, more than that, if one considers how young the author is. And while the writing doesn’t shine, when we consider it is giving voice to a character that seems to have sprouted straight out of reddit’s seediest boards, perhaps it’s not supposed to.

The male gaze is pervasive throughout:

I knew that ass. I knew it like the back of my hand. Supple,
like two hams stitched together and thrown into a pair of tight pants.
It was the kind of ass that one might mistake for having belonged to
a black girl. Or at least a chubby Cuban. I’d have recognized it
anywhere.

(and don’t we get enough of that in all the media, ever?), along with slut shaming, constantly mentally referring to his girlfriend, and most women, by “bitch”, and that ever present sense that women somehow owe him something.

The editing is a bit sloppier, there are several words that do not mean what the author is trying to convey (“I said it in a tone that
interfered if she didn’t comply then I’d yank her out by her hair.”, and “What would you explain to your parents?”), and a few instances of people “pressing their lips together to say something” and things “simultaneously concurring”.

Maybe that’s the thing, maybe we are supposed to hate the main character. The author wouldn’t have wanted us to like someone who looks at a two times cancer survivor, who grows up to become a doctor and volunteers his time to help others who went through the same struggle and think: “What a special snowflake.”, when the main character is the one who is constantly expecting to be afforded this status.

So here’s the thing, if this is read as a horror story, where we empathise with the main character and want him to succeed, then the book failed.
If, however, we read it as a truly transgressive book, where the reader is supposed to loathe the main character and feel more and more repulsed by him as the plot progresses, then it succeeded.

In much the same way as American Psycho, where we follow the protagonist’s decline and we are horrified and appalled by it all, but… we keep reading.

There are parallelisms one can’t help but make: while American Psycho forced the reader to look deeper into 80’s yuppie society, Disorderly forces the reader to look into the current 20 somethings of the 2000’s, who live through social platforms, instead of going outside.
They both rely on slasher visuals, lots of gore, and the protagonists’ mental decline.

But Disorderly is not at the same level of American Psycho.

And here's the thing, since accusations of subjectivity regarding the writing of reviews have arisen, I must confess I gave this 2 stars because I felt sorry for the author: it was his first book, and yes, it was bad, but there was some writing skill there and I didn't want to discourage him.
But it's been made clear that subjectivity is very much not the thing when writing a review, so I've changed the rating to what the book truly deserves.

When your publisher directly contacts reviewers so they review your book, DO NOT malign them across social networks because the review isn't favourable. DO NOT make up stories about how we're calling you a racist, a misogynist, and Hitler. We called your character that - not the Hitler bit, I don't know were you got that from.
But it's interesting that when we criticise your character you decide those are personal attacks against you...

Learn to be a professional, and remember that you can't PM reviewers with a sob story about how you're being bullied, then insult the very same people you PM'd on tumblr and twitter. Newsflash: it's the internet, we all have access to it, too!

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Reflection Upon a Blurb

This is not a review of the novel.

It is more a reflection on one sentence in the blurb:

"To protect his livelihood, Colton must commit reprehensible acts of violence in order to satisfy whatever it is inside him that is keeping his tumor at bay."

The medical, psychoanalytical and philosophical implications of this sentence fascinate me.

It is a joke, right? I mean the book is only a few pages shorter than "Lolita" and "American Psycho". It must explore its characters and their predicaments pretty thoroughly. Or it must be hilarious. Either way, I'm not sure I'm up to the task.

Sorry. This novel has got inside me and is keeping my humour at bay.

For the second, unrelated time in two days, I think of making a t-shirt with the logo:

I AM MY OWN BAD INFLUENCE

I am responsible for what I am, what I do, what I read, what I think and what I write.

Nothing is inside me longing to be satisfied. Nothing is inside me keeping my tumour at bay. Nothing is inside me making me commit reprehensible acts of violence.

Except me.

I am sick of the temptation to deny responsibility. Nihilism means never having to say you're responsible. I am not, nor have I ever been, a nihilist. I am going to be responsible for what I do and what happens to me today.

I am going to start by walking away from my home and then I will return. I do it every day.



SOUNDTRACK:

Teenage Fanclub & Jad Fair - "I Feel Fine"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAj6d...

"Put some more logs on that there fire. Pop some popcorn for the choir. Early in the morning. No chance of robot uprising. Look what the sunshine brings. It's a brand new day. I won't forget this magic moment...I feel fine."

[❤Ninja Bunneh❤ · Rating 1 out of 5]

[Nina · Rating 1 out of 5]

[mark monday]

" I'm smart, intelligent, an English Major, and a feminist who is completely against anything that portrays a character as sexist and racist."

hahahahahahahahahahahaha! that is the funniest thing I've read all day! and I've been watching a marathon of Helix and that is so bad it is hee-larious. the reviews for this book gave me a case of the giggles. I don't even know what to say.

I sorta like the author because he loves Girls, one of the best half-hour shows ever. but the title & content of his blog? "Captain Cool As Fuck"... I dunno. I mean, there's irony, and then there's grindingly obvious irony. griony? obviony? grind-iron? grobny? that blog is so grobny. but it's sorta funny too.

all that said, it is highly unlikely I will be reading this because I deal with enough cancer in my day job and enough cannibals in my night life. but I wish I could add a question mark to my 'unread forever' shelf. "Unread Forever?" would be so much more accurate.

[Sebastian Abbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

The creativity of this novel is apparent right from the start, and it just gets better from there. The author took a very public isolated incident and embellished it into a riveting story!

The main character Colton isn't necessarily all that likable, but yet you still find yourself wanting to know more about him.

The first half of the book is incredibly riveting, followed by a little lull and then a very very crazy ending. Seriously, the ending will leave you thinking about this book for a loooong time.

One note is that the story does not follow a single timeline. Just be sure to pay attention to the beginning of the chapters and it won't throw you off.

Highly recommend.

[Yair · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't quite know what to make of this book as I was reading it...and I still don't quite know now.

Jayme K. is a good writer, I reviewed his short piece Youth favorably, and the skill is more or less apparent in this work, Disorderly.

Unfortunately his talent is spread too thin over the course of this full length novel, it's tonally deaf, and somewhat schizophrenic. I recommend it but not without a few reservations.

To start off, his characters are completely lacking in reader accessible empathy, let alone sympathy. It's one thing to write 'rough' characters but it's completely another thing to make them essentially brick houses, built up with walls of such ingrained anger, frustration and cynicism that it asks a lot of the reader to give a damn about them, let alone want to see evidence of what their lives were like before the story and what's to come for them afterwards. And the real thing of it is, Jayme K. doesn't really give much of a reason for the emotional instability of some of these characters. The main character Colton Reznick (love that last name, use it all the time in my short stories) is diagnosed with cancer at the outset, yes, but he doesn't seem to exhibit much of the emotional symptoms of someone laid low by a death sentence illness. It rings false, like Jayme wanted to throw in the presence of the illness for some easy pathos.

The other characters really just come off as shades. Which, understandably given the first person narrative, keeps the emphasis on the Colton, but unlike a story like, say, Fight Club, or Catcher in the Rye, Colton is a faulty base on which to lay the foundations of a narrative. That being said the other characters add a little without adding too much, which is a negative, but in a roundabout way makes me wish that the story was told from a third person narrative, maybe even omniscient, because the other characters to me had just as much, if not more, to add to the story as Colton. Angel, Oliver, their stories clipped in the narrative and could have added immeasurably. But as it stands they gilded the narrative more or less decently with their inclusion. The 'revelation' about Oliver's character towards the end of the story also, once again, rang false, like, again once again, Jayme was going for extreme lowerst common denominator humor. It's a gutsy gamble that didn't pay off.

Now, as to the story itself. I hate this sentence already but...IT HAD SUCH POTENTIAL. If only Jayme had kept this story in the realm of the metaphorical and even the allegorical. It could have been a fantastically twisted Kafkaesque journey, ending abruptly or even terrifyingly. But, as it is, Jayme seems to settle for a grungier and dirtier American Psycho. Not to forget to mention that Colton's repeated escapes from any sort of moral comeuppance gets irritating after a while. Like a less polished The Talented Mr. Ripley that shows the satirical eye but not quite the grace. Not a bad set of books to emulate but sadly Jayme K. makes the mistake of explaining too much when, I think, the readers would've been more than happy with ambiguity, and it would've served the story in an incredible way, making it not only a statement about emotional instability but the nature of the absurd drifting around such conventional moral definitions, namely, good and evil.

What we have though is a novel with a frankly quite superb first half (the tension, the moral ambiguity, the setting of atmosphere) and a boring, repetitious, and sagging second half. Oddly enough it reminded me of Crime and Punishment in its attempted yoking together of two vastly different narratives. But whereas Dostoyevsky forged a hybrid from Christian morality tale and Greek tragedy, Jayme K. seems to try to merge blacker than night comedy with despairing psychological thriller, with mixed but fascinating results all things considered.

As it is it's a solid if rough effort. Jayme K shows promise but some serious rough edges that need smoothing are more prevalent here than in his previous work. I'm holding out hope for his next effort, and I suspect he can rope skip the line between absurd nihilism and genuinely affecting (and at times hilarious) black comedy.

[Snem · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this isn't normally the type of book I gravitate towards, I really enjoyed it. I found the plot fantastic and especially riveting towards the end. The way the author played with the timeline was a great decision. The hallucinatory heroin dreams were so well written, funny and insightful. Loved loved loved the character of Angel. Why is every female in this story such a wacko, raging, bitch? I wanted to know a little bit more about motivations and I really wanted more of that looney mother. I recommend this book to everyone, even people who don't typically like sci-fi, thriller, zombie, cannibal books might really enjoy this one.

[Kristan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have enjoyed everything that Jayme K has written before this and Disorderly was no different. I knew the very basics of this novel's plot but really didn't know what I was getting myself into.

Without going too in depth into the plot, I'll just say that you probably haven't read anything like this before, unlike a lot of popular novels out there. Jayme's talent as a writer is clear throughout the entire novel. The characters were well thought out. The storyline had a solid beginning, middle, and end. Sometimes I'm highly irritated by the ending of a good novel but that wasn't the case here. The descriptions throughout the book were so vivid that I felt thrown into a horror movie and literally felt nauseous while reading certain chapters. That may sound like a bad thing, but it's not. If your writing can make me visualize the story to the point of making my stomach turn, you're doing something right.

The stand-out problem I had with this novel involved the time jumps. Although the dates and years are noted at the beginning of each chapter, I found it a bit confusing and often found myself flipping through the book trying to connect which chapters matched up with others in terms of time. This distracted me from the plot at hand.

For a first published novel, this was a great read and well worth the money I spent on it; I rarely actually purchase books. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what the author comes up with for his next novel.

[Laura Lord · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved the author's writing style. The short chapters kept the pace moving so quickly, I didn't want to put it aside. The tone, that sarcastic wit, left me laughing at times and annoyed (in a good way, as I believe one should be) with the speaker at others.

When the story began, I loved it. It seemed like such a true impression of how a young man would react to having a terminal cancer at such a young age. I was like, "Finally! A book that doesn't skirt the edges and make everything all happy-okey-dokey about a disease like this". Then it went to the Bath Salt Cliff and dived off into Zombie-land. Now for those of you who like zombies, this is a take on them I have NEVER seen. It was amazing. The imaginative storyline was captivating, even for myself, who is not a zombie fan. I had trouble justifying the main character's actions. I mean, I guess personally I'd have gone running for help before I started offing random people around me and frying them up for Sunday dinner. Even so, even with zombies and cannibalism, the writing was still strong and on point through-out the entire story. It kind of ended like the first episode of Lost, though

[Rabbit {Paint me like one of your 19th century gothic heroines!}]

Debating if I want to read this to snark OR just avoid it. Can't decide. Anyone want to dare me? :P

[Danie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disorderly is a remarkable book in many regards. It is extremely well-written by an author who has mastered the mode of the unreliable narrator, offering a probing critique of the egotistical nature of contemporary society. A lot of these recent reviews attack Jayme K's use of racism and misogyny but these are tools the author uses in order to get at that bigger picture: Colton is despicable and you should condemn what he says and does.

The first person narrator of this novel, Colton Reznik, is an initially sympathetic character undergoing the trauma of knowing he will soon die due to a tumor in his brain. Colton is a biting sarcastic, moody individual who disassociates with the world around him, regarding the people in his life through highly subjective and often cutting ways, such as his girlfriend Leah. Colton regards her as this beautiful, if despicable human with whom he now has come to hate through the lens of her former actions. Jayme K uses Colton's hateful and sexual comments toward Leah in a means of showing what kind of person Colton is, the worst of the worst kind of human in society.

Through Colton, Jayme K explores the racially and sexually charged means through which contemporary society has become egotistical and selfish, how important ties such as family and friendship get devalued as society grows increasingly focused on self-preservation and individual satisfaction, until ultimately it will end up eating themselves and what makes them human, as is what happens to Colton at the end of the novel. It approaches this through the choice of the selfish first person narrative, investing the reader in Colton's thoughts and processes in order to illustrate Colton's delusional way of looking at the world around him and the demeaning way he treats people such as Oliver, his best friend, and how he rejects his parents while still maintaining sympathy for him.

Colton is a hateful character, the character that you love to hate, in the same regard as Nabokov's Humbert Humbert in Lolita. If there is any flaw in the way Jayme K has written Colton, it is that he has written Colton too well and too realistically for the unsuspecting, invested reader to separate the highly subjective way Colton looks at the world from the author's tone of the novel.

Ultimately, attacking Jayme K for what Colton's views is as stupid and pointless as attacking Nabokov for Humbert Humbert's actions.

[Lcdk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I became interested in this book when I saw the strange cover and after reading over some of the reviews. I decided to take a gamble and try out the book and I must say right now that the material went WAY above and beyond my initial expectations.

The writing is great, well-refined to perfection, and expressed in a way that vividly tells the story of the unlikable protagonist, Colton.

Colton is a big reason of why I think this book may be a hit or miss for most people, he's different than your average character - showing negative characteristics that most people usually don't find in a book. For me, this was good thing - it adds a unique and refreshingly new twist that kept the story intriguing and enjoyable to read for me personally.

What I admire most about this book is how the author writes with a raw and uncensored writing style that doesn't leave any 'questionable' parts out for the reader. It's original, unique, and this combined with the great story really makes this a 5 star read for me.

If you're looking for something new, look no further - it's right here.

[Jordan Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I might start giving this book to people I've met and use their reaction to gauge whether they're worth my time. I wouldn't be surprised if the protagonist is tucked behind a layer of "you're supposed to not like him"--as far as I'm concerned, and unlikable narrator is no problem, but one so basic and rote in his particular brand of unlikability is nothing but exhausting. Scroll through 4chan; skip this book and go straight to the source. The author failed the moment Colton was introduced, simply in the way that no death, no miserable, tortured demise could have been gruesome enough to feel satisfying and just.

[Diane Stephàni · Rating 4 out of 5]

It wouldn't be a novel by Jayme K. without cannibalism, bath salt face-eating, and whiny hipster teens that are interestingly similar to the ones found on tumblr. The gore was very touching, and I would absolutely recommend this novel for some light reading over breakfast on a Sunday morning. I look forward to Jayme's upcoming comic book series, also involving murder, and now believe that Jayme K. himself may actually be a serial killer.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fascinating. Also incredibly honest. I can say I enjoyed every page from front to back. It felt like a Chuck Palahniuk novel so I really have no complaints especially from a new author. To the people who don't like the book because the characters have racist thoughts I don't even understand how they would enjoy American Psycho or Clockwork Orange or a plethora of other books where the characters do horrendous things.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. This was the first book to make me laugh while simultaneously being disgusting.

[Mairéad (is roaming the Undying Lands) · Rating 1 out of 5]

[Manny]

Until a few hours ago, I had never even heard of this book, which is apparently about a brain-damaged man who acts in an inappropriate and offensive way. But now I learn that it has achieved some minor notoriety because rumors are circulating that the author offered free copies to people who posted five-star reviews.

May I just point out, in as neutral and constructive a manner as possible, that I would almost certainly never have become aware of these rumors if Goodreads management had not threatened to close down the accounts of some people who have repeated them, thus making the story ten times as interesting. Guys, honestly: is this really the best way to deal with the problem?

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a bizarrely fun and weird book. The ending is a bit of a cop out but I still enjoyed the read.

[Sandra]

Based on the two 2-star reviews I've seen for this book, both of which explained quite well what the character in this book is all about, I would actually have been interested to read this. It is possible, as those two reviews show, to separate the character from the author's voice, and I don't mind asshat characters at all in book, if their purpose is to point out the asshattery. So, I might have picked this up, because I thought it sounded interesting. A complete asshat character, someone I could love to hate - why the hell not?

And then I saw some ugly behavior on the author's behalf, and some more ugly behavior from the author, and I'm suddenly no longer interested. Pity, that.

[Not Sarah Connor Writes · Rating 3 out of 5]

(This book was sent to me by the publisher and does not bias my review in any way)

I always love reading Indie books. I find that Indie books have plots that separate themselves from the norm of published books nowadays. Their plots are actually creative, not just identical stories copied over and over with replaced names and settings. I like the newness, the creativity, the originality. Whenever reading an Indie book I wonder why it didn't get picked up by a publisher, and then I think that maybe it was too original, too outside the norm to be considered sell-able. Oh well, their loss.

I have conflicted feelings about Disorderly. While I enjoy the originality and how K. expanded his story from one true random story in the media (you remember the Bath Salts cannibal guy don't you?) and made it into a much larger issue, I hated the protagonist. Colton, our protagonist, is an extremely unlikable character. I find him to be a mix of Holden Caufield and, later on, Alex from A Clockwork Orange. He doesn't seem to like anyone and then complains about how lonely he is, though he does offer some words of wisdom during the course of the novel.

EDIT: Please ignore this section of the review I made a mistake! The story is written non-linear. Reading Tip: Pay attention to the dates at the beginning of each chapter so you know where you are (time wise) in the story. My apologies!

The format of the novel was also a bit confusing. The copy that was sent to me was unproofed so in the now proofed copy of the novel this may have been fixed, keep that in mind. It starts off easy enough to understand, a Prologue of the present which then sets the story in the past wondering how these present events came to be. However when reading into the past the timeline gets tangled. It will be in chronological order for a time but then a chapter is thrown in where Colton is having lunch with a mysterious man who tells him his options. Next the story continues chronologically only to go farther into the past for when Colton is contacted by said mysterious man. This of course could have been fixed in proofed copies of the novel.

END OF EDIT!

I will say that the ending did surprise me. It is nothing from what I was expecting and I was chilled by the last sentence. When I finished I couldn't help mulling over the ending and wonder if
BluSky planned it. Colton does mention earlier in the novel that BlueSky had more plane crashes in the past few years than any other plane companies. Was it planned by BluSky so that they could kill Colton, and other people infected with the same disease? Was the lab in Copenhagen a lie?

Of course, I'm probably just reading to much into it, but I like the ambiguity.

Jayme K. is a promising new author. His writing style is easy enough to follow and while it is harsh at times he also provides some deep meaning and wisdom in unlikely situations. I'd like to read more from him!

[DMS · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hi DMS,

We are contacting you regarding your review of Disorderly. As the review was predominantly about the author's behavior and not about the book, it violated our review guidelines. Given this, it has been removed from the site. We have attached a copy for your personal records.

It may help to know that the activity you described in your review is strictly prohibited on the site, and we have followed up with the appropriate action. In the future, if you are concerned about the behavior of an author or another member, please either flag the content or report the issue to us via email so that we can handle the situation. We ask that you please refrain from posting reviews like this in the future.

Best regards,
The Goodreads Team

Dear team of douchcanoes,

You didn't just delete the review, you deleted this book from my shelves. You want to blank out my review, whatever, that's why I don't actually review here any more. But stop messing with my shelving. Cataloging is not the same thing as reviewing. Asshats.

Kind regards and fuck off,

D.M.S.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok I liked this. Typing this on my phone so pls forgive any typos.

Jayme has obviously taken some heat for writing this book. Why? I can't tell you. Some reviewers have a problem with the racist and sexist nature of the protagonist and somehow conflate these characteristics with the author. (I wonder if they think Kathy Bates is a bad person herself after watching Misery. Seems like they're confused.) Alternately, reviewers are upset with Jayme's reaction urging people to give good reviews to offset negative ones that were not posted in good faith after an honest reading of the text. I won't get into the politics of that. It's beyond the scope of this review - but it's pretty shameful to write a review without having read the book and gang up on an author, despite the nature of the author's characters. I mean, what would Samuel R Delany do if everyone reacted like that when Dhalgren came out? Oh wait, some did. And those reviewers have been proven to be sub-par critics. But this is the internet and I can't say I'm not myself guilty of harassment back in the days of AOL. Sigh...memories... And I really do believe that reviewers are entitled to whatever honest critique they want to give a work - even if extremely negative - so long as it's done in good faith and with substance and thought.

Enough 'non-review' - that's not why you're reading this.

Yes, the protagonist, Colton, is a disgusting monster. I would disagree with some reviewers and say there are clear distinctions between Colton and American Psycho's character, for what it's worth. Colton's problems don't stem from psychosis, there are differences in the overall situation between the two, etc. But ok.

Jayme adds to Colton's social monstrosities (racism, misogyny, stuckuptitude, obliviousness) with actual physical monstrosities (cannibalism, oozing pus-face [nice]), and the result is a wonderful anti-hero that we can all love to hate, despite his remorse at times. Much like real life, all of the characters in the book are problematic in their own ways - nothing is really 'cookie-cutter', thank god. If I want to read literary Toll House cookies, I'll stick to Dean Koontz or Tom Clancy thank you very much. (No pls.)

Chapter 48- I'm reading it thinking, 'Oh. My. God. THIS guy.' For those who didn't make it to the end of the book, I'd urge you to give it another shot. Read it for what the book is, not who you think the author might be based on his character. This book has an excellent ending, and such an achievement takes a careful, talented mind. Kudos.

Four stars because I thought the first fifth or so of the book wasn't written as well as the rest of it, stylistically. But I really enjoyed it.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Warning – extensive descriptions of cannibalism and mention of necrophilia

Colton Reznik is in his late twenties and has terminal brain cancer, which turns him into an even bigger arsehole than he already is. He’s also a writer and a tumblr blogger – one of those cynical ones. He’s severed most ties with his friends and family and hates everybody and everything. One day, he decides to venture outside.

He really shouldn’t have done that.

A deadly virus is spreading across America (not dissimilar to Supernatural’s Croatoan) which is turning people into… well, zombies of sorts. You can guess what happens next. Reznik gets bitten and infected. At first, nothing happens. Then, he experiences a previously unknown attraction to raw meat, which leads to him going on a murderous and cannibalistic rampage.

The first thing you need to know about this book is that it is, to put it bluntly, a work of transgressive fiction. It is also the first work of the type I’ve ever come across, so I didn’t really know what to expect. Jayme K, however, from what my research tells me, takes “transgressive” to a whole new level. Colton Reznik is probably one of the most repulsive characters I’ve ever come across (and I’ve read about Joffrey Baratheon). Someone pointed out that he might as well be an extreme case of online trolls who troll IRL as well as online. The instances of sexism, slut-shaming racism, xenophobia and homophobia are almost on every single page. Some have pointed out that this guy is a grown-up modern day Holden Caulfield. I disagree – while Holden and Colton are both “misunderstood and angry at everything”, deep down Holden was a good guy. Colton is a horrible excuse for a human being. At first, I kept rolling my eyes at the author’s writing style, and was offended, but then I looked him up. Jayme writes for ThoughtCatalog and blogs on Tumblr, and he is probably one of the most sarcastic writers I’ve ever come across.

“Disorderly” is, therefore in no way meant to be taken seriously. The language of the book is pretty repulsive 95% of the time, what with all the racism, sexism etc, as well as graphic descriptions of cooking human flesh, but somehow, Jayme makes it work. The remaining 5% are actually inspiring writing quotes that Jayme sneaks in. Overall, this isn’t something I’d read again – not because Jayme is a bad writer (quite the contrary), but because transgressive zombie novels aren’t my thing. I was going to give it a 6/10 rating, but the excessive use of the “c-word” when describing people made me knock it down to 5/10.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

As my friend puts it I’m a book nympho, so it isn’t unusual for me to devour books and get overly involved with the events and the characters. However, it’s really rare that I get so engrossed into a book that I want to binge read and forget that I am a living being until I hit the final page. This was that kind of book.
I got angry and incredibly irritated when people tried to talk to me when I was reading the book. I was trapped in this world with this awful excuse for a human being, and I loved it. It’s thrilling, terrifying, hilarious, and absolutely disgusting—every fucking bit of it. I can’t count how many times I screamed at the character in the book.

I could go on and on about this book. I really could. I gushed so much about it to my best friend, she got annoyed with me. But I’ll try to keep this short. Picture being on a roller coaster with all of these loops, twists, and turns, and your fellow passengers are Quintin Tarantino, Chuck Palahniuk, and Stephen King. It’s that fucking awesome. It literally pained me every time I had to put the book down. This makes Walter White from Breaking Bad look like a fucking good guy, but that’s my opinion. Read this fucking book, and if you don’t enjoy it, you can look in the mirror and be ashamed for not loving awesome things.

In all seriousness, if you love disturbing, disgusting, hilarious, and horrifying things—this is the book for you. READ IT. It’s fabulous.

[Shannon Fillmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jayme K. offers a creative perspective of a 20-something dying of terminal cancer who gradually slips into the habit of enjoying humans as meals. Unfortunately for most writers, I am not easily impressed by most novels. Yes, John Green is one of these unfortunate writers. The reason I stopped reading for fun was because all the stories were the same and it became very dull figuring out the ending before I actually got to the end. Jayme broke the mold with the boring novels and truly put his readers into the mind of a psychopath with vivid detail and accuracy. The book made me question my own logical thought processes because I could clearly see the line of logic in the main characters actions (at least up until a certain point). When it comes to zombies, I'm not really interested in things like that but Jayme put a realistic perspective on the idea of zombies and made the story very interesting. The sarcasm and unnecessary remarks catered exactly to my sense of humor and made the novel even more enjoyable. It's been a very long time since I've actually enjoyed a book that wasn't a text book or a novel with a very predictable ending.

[Justine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't normally go for horror, but I loved this book and found it difficult to put down. Jayme definitely has a knack for suspenseful writing.

However, while I understand what the author was trying to do by making Colton an irredeemably horrible person, he still lacked enough depth for me to feel fully engaged with him as a narrator. I had a similar problem with the other characters as well. Additionally, the time jumps from chapter to chapter were somewhat confusing. This format can work, I've seen it done before, but I'm not sure it was the right choice for this story.

Despite these few bumps, the ending left me reeling. This is a great book for anyone that loves the horror genre and has been waiting for a fresh take on zombies. Jayme shows great promise as an up-and-coming author and I look forward to reading more of his work in the near future (I also recommend his short story, Youth, which is similarly dark with an exciting twist at the end).