#14 Jonny Gibbings - Malice in Blunderland

if im gunna write a review of this book im gunna do it write. first tings first, some of the writing is going to bother u. thats the only distraction i had in the book. Its not written with perfect english, grammer, etc,. Okay... I can't do that anymore. :-)

The book is awesome. It reminded me a lot of Snatch for some reason, maybe because of the characters and the locale. The main character gets pretty much just thrown into traffic, figuratively speaking, and is on a mission to get his name cleared. I mean, once you've been mistaken for being a serial rapist, been beaten up, and I don't even want to talk about the sex with the wheelchair bound woman, you're going to have a story that a lot of people want to read.

Not only is the book a delight, had me laughing out loud throughout the whole thing, but the guy who wrote it is NOTHING like the guy in the book (other than some of his grammar, but that's excusable). He's a huge supporter of the literary arts and a fantastic writer.

Go read his interview here, his blog here, and his book here...now.

As a special side note, the best review of Malice in Blunderland on Amazon is, "This is the most sick book i have ever read . Please do you know any book like this one ?" I just think it's perfect. Thank you, dablin! :-)

#13 Chad Kultgen - The Average American Marriage

When I interviewed Chad, back in January, here, I said that, "he's one of the first honest voices of men in their late twenties/early thirties." Well, now he's going a little older, a little darker, and somehow, a little more honest (I honestly didn't think that was possible after reading The Average American Male).

Chad paints a picture here that a lot of people know is true, but never want to admit. He says what we all want to say, but don't want to believe. He shows you in this two-hundred some pages what it's like to be married, have kids, and keep moving forward in a life, even if it's not exactly how you pictured it. Don't get me wrong, he's going to bring the humor, you're going to laugh a lot throughout the book, but this one isn't going to let you limp away when you're done, you'll be crawling.

In this novel, you'll go through what it's like to look at women as objects, masturbate to phone porn, and watch your kids grow up while you're still growing up yourself. Unlike his other books, I left this one with a little less of a smile than I did coming in. That isn't to say that this is a bad thing, it just has an ending that's a little more solemn than I was expecting.

I guess the thought I have after reading the novel, and his acknowledgements page, is that marriage and kids aren't on the list of priorities for Mr. Kultgen... and that's okay. He gives us an honest and brutal view of what life could become if we let it.

Go pick up his other books now and when this one hits in February, it'll be a fun break from whatever life you lead. Before or after kids and marriage.