John > Recent Status Updates

Josh Malerman's bit is the only dud here so far; it's didactic and thoroughly phony. There is no way in hell this supposed conversation happened the way he wrote it and, based on that alone, I'll probably never read anything else he's written.

I've nearly given up on this 2 or 3 times. Supposedly it doesn't require knowledge of Magic the Gathering, but there's just so much lore, backstory, infodumping etc. that it's a bit offputting. I'd rather it focus much more on characterization.

Not really enjoying this one for some reason, but it's obviously important preliminary work leading to the Indian Lake trilogy, so [shrugs]

I mean, I'm going to read it all, but this book is forking terrible.

It's ... fine? There are worse books. Sadly, too, there are also far better books.

I get why Hodges is in this book--partly to solve the problem at the end and partly to absolve Pete from giving his parents stolen money and his parents from not reporting it--but I do wish that the momentum didn't slow to a crawl every time he shows up.

Deliberately racist in places, unintentionally racist in others. Looking past all that--if you can--it's not bad.