John Dies at the End.......or does he?

STOP.

YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TOUCHED THIS BOOK WITH YOUR BARE HANDS

NO, DON'T PUT IT DOWN.  IT'S TOO LATE

THEY'RE WATCHING YOU

Unsurprisingly this rather caught my attention and I thought I had some sort of work of creative genius on my hands.  It would seem I was rather sadly mistaken.

This is a novel primarily about Dave, our narrator, and John the rather random namesake of the book.  These two different yet inseparable friends attend a raucous, drink fuelled party and the aftermath sets us up for the rest of the novel.  John wanders off with a group of people, some of which are never found again, all of which took a substance referred to throughout the novel as "Soy Sauce" (imagine if Satan created his own brand of LSD and you have it nailed).  "Soy Sauce" opens up a world of madness to it's imbibers as they begin to see some rather nasty critters and attract the attention of some even nastier foes.  Dave and John seem to attract the bulk of this attention and the rest of the novel explores that, albeit a bit non-cohesive in parts.

So......

The novel started well, it really did.  It grips you right from the first page through equal measures of mystery and outright weirdness, both of which egg you on to read further.  The wit in it is sharp and peculiar with a very cult like feel to it and the brief visions of what I can only say are of some sort of Hell are retina burning.

But.....

The novel does not really go anywhere, it starts but it doesn't gather pace beyond the first 200 pages, and when it racks up nearly 470 pages that is a bit worrying.  It feels like a collection of three novellas rather than one novel as there are three very distinct stories in the book which are held together by the notion of Dave telling a reporter about his exploits in the world of the paranormal.  I just found stories 2 and 3 repetitive and dull, not quite so well formed as the first and I was left feeling disappointed by this.  It feels as through the sharp witty writing style got tossed out of the window.  But I persevered through the terrible penis jokes and wandering narrative to the end of the novel, and thankfully I was surprised.

At last....

The ending has it's own twist as the story really comes together, I loved the ending of the third of Dave's tales and it led well into the conclusion of the novel.  The cleverness reappeared, thank goodness.  It is just such a shame that the beginning and end of this novel was marred by an awful middle.  At least I am glad to say I finished this, but I doubt many others would persevere unless they were getting a lot out of the lucid and disturbing imagery Wong shares with us.

This novel is perfect fodder for the cult market and already seems to have it's own following online.  Maybe not one for everyone's bookshelf (including mine) but this Internet sensation surely has it's fans and I hope they love the sequel.  I, however, will not be reading it.