2019 Illumination Book Awards Bronze Medal Winner!
Based on The Life of Carlton St. Michael, the NUMBER ONE TOP RATED show on the URN!
Merry Friggin' Christmas An Edgy Christmas Comedy
The perfect gift for that "Bah-humbug!" in your life!
So, who is Carlton St. Michael?
Carlton St. Michael is an up-and-coming atheist stand-up comic on the verge of fame and fortune. The only problem is, he's dead. Actually, twice dead.
And, his life story has become the number one top-rated show on the Undying Rerun Network (URN). A Christmas Comedy, of all things.
But Carlton isn't buying any of it. He's out to prove it's all some near-death hallucination that will fade to black when he really dies, or vanish when he awakes.
So, are you dying to see how this story turns out? Well, that's the only way to see it on the URN. You have to die first. But Carlton has written it all down for you, so you can enjoy it without venturing beyond the veil.
But Carlton is none too happy with the laptop he has, which has the mysterious Holly-Jolly censoring enabled which digitally bleeps out or converts many of his favorite words to Christmasy euphemisms.
Look for the soon to be released Naughty Edition for our best effort at translating the censoring back to Carlton's intended salty language.
Even if you are dying to enjoy Carlton's story, you need not go that far. You can get the EBook, NOW!
Warning: Merry Friggin’ Christmas was written for adults and even with Holy-Jolly censoring enabled is too edgy for children under age 13.
Check out some reviews from some imaginary people:
"This book surprised me. I kept thinking I knew where it was going, and it ended up somewhere else. I wish I did not have to be dead to see it on the URN." Misty Fication
"I bought this book because there are elves on the cover. I love elves. The book was so good that I didn't even realize there were no elves in the story until the end, and it didn't matter to me at all." Sylvaniel the Elven Princess
"I can't tell you why I loved this book without spoiling the ending. So, let's just say that I loved it, because of the ending." John Q. Endingliker
Joseph Cillo, Jr. writes edgy fiction in a variety of genres. Whether it's a supernatural thriller like his graphic novel, 'Blind Prophet' or a comedy like the 2019 Illumination Book Award Bronze Medal winner, 'Merry Friggin' Christmas: An Edgy Christmas Comedy', his work features unexpected plot twists, unique characters, and the highest of stakes.
The added dimension of the supernatural infuses his work with stakes that go beyond life and death, and into the eternal. There is a basic, Catholic moral viewpoint behind his work that gives a solid foundation to what might otherwise be seen as purely fantastical. The reading experience can at times be unnerving, as the reader is drawn to consider whether the mystical nature of his tales is nearer to reality than the plainly material experiences of life. The eternal consequences of choices made by characters and spiritual dimensions of actions made clearly visible are mindbending and thought-provoking.
Joseph Cillo, Jr. classifies his writing as "Edgy Catholic Fiction." Edgy Catholic Fiction is generally written for adult audiences, at minimum teens and up. The grouping crosses genres and includes a perspective that is generally consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church, which may include rather dramatic supernatural elements, as in "The Exorcist," or other less dramatic religious elements, which could be as simple as characters relying on prayer. The religious elements may not be overt and could well lie only in the author's general perspective or a character's perspective that there is a God, and a moral, immutable foundation to the universe.
Examples of Edgy Catholic literature lie strewn throughout genres which no one has grouped together. Literary masters such as Graham Greene, Flannery O'Connor, J.R.R. Tolkien, and even, C.S. Lewis, who though not Catholic, was consistent with the Catholic perspective in his fiction, wrote works that fall into the Edgy Catholic domain. Dean Koontz, whose supernatural and suspense thrillers are written from a Catholic perspective and are quite edgy, is a more contemporary example of an Edgy Catholic author.
Joseph Cillo, Jr. is the fourth of seven children, born within a year of his older sister in a most unplanned and yet welcome way. Having the great blessings of a loving family, however, did not prevent his drift into a sort of foolhardy extended adolescence for many years, broken only by suffering and illness, in a rather miraculous fashion. He now lives a life of quiet prayer and diligent work.
The story started a little funny. A Catholic turned atheist and a stand-up comedian whose jokes are always attacking the Church and people who believe. At least that's the way the story starts. The story, for me, starts going down the rabbit hole when he is hit by a truck in New Jersey and dies. He has visions while dead and he starts believing that maybe he has been wrong about no God. At this point, the story is all about him moving back to the church and meeting God. For me, at this point in the book became preachy and tried to explain why you should dedicate your life to the church. Well, I did finish the book.
Never be caught dead in Jersey. One reader said something like, "It's a funny book about Christmas and a dead comedy man." Yes, it is. Kind of a Christmas zombie story, only not really. I wrote it, so naturally, I think it's great!
One note: This book features a snarky, profane narrator. If that is not your thing, if you like cozy mysteries or cozy anything, you may not like this book and may want to throw it at the wall after the first couple pages.
Please sample the first chapter in the Look Inside feature and make sure you can appreciate this style of writing.
If you like snarkiness and enjoy more raw, direct profanity, opt for the "Naughty Edition." You may be annoyed with the digital bleeping in the standard edition necessary to avoid an R-rating for too many F-bombs in the dialogue and inner-voice narrative.
If you are annoyed by even obscured profanity and would rather read, "A Christmas Carol," by Charles Dickens, it is in every way a superior book and you should go read it. As the subtitle of Merry Friggin' Christmas says, it is "An Edgy Christmas Comedy." So, if you don't like the edge, stay away from it. And enjoy a good book that better suits your fancy.
Not at all what I was expecting. Thought it was just going to be funny. Instead it was a bunch of crap about Catholicism and an atheist who found God again. And besides all the talk of religion, it just really wasn’t funny. At all.
I've never read a book that could be so defensive of, yet also quite a bit offensive to, the same subject; in this case, it's Catholicism. I do have to admit that the author pulls this off in a rather ingenious way, having a dead person narrate their last few months on earth.
Carlton St. Michael, our MC, at times made me laugh, roll my eyes and even face-palm as I followed his journey - what he said, what he did, and what he thought. As a devout believer in God (though I'm not Catholic) and a firm logician, I was fairly surprised by how so much proof existed to Carlton and yet he still managed to not believe, adamantly refused, in fact. While "proof of faith" is an oxymoron of the highest calibre, that's exactly what Carlton experienced, however most of it was in his own mind and couldn't be re-examined under an electron microscope when he woke up at the hospital.
If you have a pretty lenient sense of humour regarding religion/Catholicism/atheism, I highly recommend giving this a read - it is wildly entertaining watching Carlton struggle to accept his near-death experience (or perhaps I should just say death experience) as fact, and continue with him as you find out his final destination.
I read some of the comments before I bought this book. Because the last thing I wanted was to read something ridiculing my faith. And I saw comments from..unable to get past the first chapter...to...It brought tears. So I read the book, from the first blasphemous chapter to the very end. Everyone needs to read this book. Catholics, lapsed Catholics, part-time Catholics, Protestants, and Atheists too. The first few chapters set the scene, but the deeper into the story you get,you start to see how what you think you believe is not actually what your subconscious believes. You will, however, learn that God has a purpose in everything that happens whether we understand it or not. Whether we see it as fair or just, rational or just a coincidence. Science is a theory. There are miracles. Some mysteries have to be taken on faith. And we'll all know the answers when we die.
Ever so often, I come across a book that completely catches me off guard and surprises the $#!! out of me, and this takes the cake as the best of the holiday season. It has charisma, a fantastic voice, and it was funny as all hell. I tend to step around books that have religious undertones, but I am glad I gave this one a shot. Looking forward to more from the author!
The 1st time a spirit filled book brought me to tears several times. Yes it was a comedy but heart wrenching to. It is so hard to lose your faith but harder still to get it back.
Abandoned at 25%. The book is well written but the story too black and white for me. It starts off with bad religious jokes involving excrements before permanently slapping the holy ghost in your face. I can't see that this book goes anywhere other than trying to convert you to Catholicism and not in a funny, subtle way.
I'm not a Catholic, so I don't agree with some of the beliefs that Cillo was addressing/mocking, but I still found some of the attacks sacrilegious. I'm not a fan of potty humor, the main character is a bit too arrogant for my taste, and getting to the main part of the story took too long.
I liked the premise of this book. The execution was not quite as good, for me.
The main idea: an atheist comedian has a near death experience and begins to rethink his comedy routine, which skewers God and religion, in general, and Catholicism, in particular.
SOME of the reasons why the MC skewers Catholicism just seem made up, to me. The MC's main beef with God is that his brother was killed by lightning, as a child. That could certainly do it for you. But the bits about mysteries and intercession and the virgin birth...I am not sure why that bothered him the way he claimed it did.
When the MC has ANOTHER NDE, he gets publicity and another 15 minutes of fame. The remainder of the book is about his conversion.
The comedy in this was seldom funny. That was one of my gripes. It was fine in a couple of parts. But it really did not do much for me. And the conversion parts...especially the soliloquy of the MC in his comedy act...that just did not ring true for me, at ALL. He went ON and ON and ON for pages and pages and none of it was even relevant, let alone compelling stuff. He ends up REALLY liking the Catholic parts, which did very little, for me.
Who would enjoy reading this? I am not sure. If you are an atheist, you are not going to like it. If you are a Christian, you might kind of sort of like it. The MC gets there, eventually. But it certainly is not a joyous journey for him or for us, by extension. I DID want to find out what happened, although I had a fair idea, from the start.
There was not a lot of comedy, which is unfortunate, if you have the word Comedy, in the title. Even the conversion part seemed labored. There was no real joy on the part of the MC. I liked the idea, though. If I like an idea, I usually round up, in terms of my rating. In this case, I could not muster the conviction.
⭐️ 4.5/5 — Merry Friggin’ Christmas by Joseph Cillo Jr.
Welp… I tried Christian fiction! 🤣 I picked this up wanting a comedy book, and when I realized it was Christian fiction, I almost backed out — but the humor kept me, and honestly? I’m glad I stayed.
This one is funny in the most unexpected ways. Yes, there’s cursing, yes, the main character dies twice while trying to find God again, and somehow it all works. It’s not laugh-out-loud on every page, but when it hits, I genuinely LOL’d.
The story was way more interesting than I expected. I really liked how the ending wrapped everything up, giving you a little “where are they now” moment for all the characters.
What really got me was David saving Carlton — that act completely changed Carlton, gave his life purpose. He saved so that David can become Pope Michael I, the first North American pope! I also enjoyed how the story wove in scripture without feeling preachy. It was a great ending!
Overall: funny, meaningful, weird in the best way, and surprisingly deep. Carlton’s purpose was to save David, and the story delivered that beautifully.
I cannot write a review without giving too much away. Let me just say this, the story is about a stand-up comedian on the verge of his big break. He has come up with a routine berating the Catholic Church that all his atheistic audience loves. But, his breakthrough gets delayed when he is hit by a truck and spends twenty minutes "caught dead in Jersey".
It isn't what you first suspect, Christmas is more of a backdrop or time frame than an important part of the book. It is a comedy that is much more philosophical than most: Nietzsche and G K Chesterton are discussed quite a bit in there. The story does get a bit repetitive at times while trying to hide the ending. But, I did have the story figured out by about 20% of the way in.
𝑴𝒆𝒓𝒓𝒚 𝑭𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒈𝒊𝒏' 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒎𝒂𝒔, An Edgy Christmas Comedy by Joseph Cillo Jr.
I read about 20% and scanned the rest. It's a waste of time. I was hoping for an articulately written story of how an atheist deals with the Christmas season. Many of us love the season, although we do not celebrate the Christian version. This book was not that. It was a masturbatory, proselytizing bit of Christian allegory, wherein the main characters is a waste of space but through God's (or maybe Jesus's) love sees the light.
Note to this author and all others -- if I wanted a sermon or to hear a proverb, there are several nice churches in my area. I'll go there.
Carlton a stand up comedian, former Catholic and now atheist does a offensive bit on "the son of god' He gets hit by a truck and dies for 20 minutes. He claims to meet the "J.C" in heaven. Few people believe him. for the next six weeks he tries to figure out what this is all about. Saves a couple people tries to get a show on cable. He has quite a lot to figure out. won't give too many spoilers. I found this book amusing in parts not so much in other areas. Some may be offended by the material. like the title this book can be "edgy"
Thinking this was a funny story I was wrong I really didn't find much funny in it. Starting out as more or less bad words and seems lots of things said about the Catholics and God because this man who was suppose to be a comedian didn't believe in God it seems. So if you are a Catholic most of the book will more than likely be offensive to you . Even if in the ending he realizes he is wrong about God from all the happenings to him. I would not have paid for this book - I did get it free.
An interesting perspective on creation, God, and why God lets things happen as they do. A comic and atheist questions and finally gets answers to the great mystery. I thought after the first chapter there was no way I was going to read this book but the more I read the more I had to read. Truly entertaining and thought provoking. I enjoyed the book.
This was funny for about the first 25 pages, then the story turned into a religious dissertation disguised as fiction. Maybe it's just me but I didn't find this "edgy" in any way. Only gave it a star because I had to for the review...not worth the time I spent reading this, for sure...
I wanted to give this at least 3 stars, but I just couldn’t. I was disappointed by the lack of “comedy” that this book promised. As intrigued as I was by the story line, it turned out to be preachy and hit you over the head with religion.
It starts out like any other story…but quickly turns into a lesson about life’s choices. The only reason I gave it a 4 is because of the ending. I had hoped for a different outcome.