How to Save Your Child | James Breakwell

Summary:

 

Author James Breakwell takes us through another series of parenting rules for extreme circumstances. This book focuses on keeping your child safe, even from themselves.

Review:

I'm a big fan of Breakwell's books. I've been pre-ordering them with the confidence that they'll be laugh out loud funny and well worth the cost.That being said, this one felt "just okay". It was still funny, no question of that. I'm still glad I bought it and I know people who would enjoy it.

The book has all the classic elements that make a Breakwell book fun. You've got the clipart comics emphasizing the points he's making in the text. You've got the ridiculous graphs showing your chances of survival in ridiculous situations. The book is even dedicated to cheese! Who doesn't love that?

It really isn't until the second half of the book, when situations start getting more and more ridiculous, that things really lose their charm. Like, how to survive if you and your child are suddenly in the world of Carrie or The Shawshank Redemption or the original Donkey Kong video game. It can't be that the more unrealistic stuff is less funny; the chapter on time travel was good. I guess, maybe, it feels like the later chapters were more just filling up the page counts. 

It's still an entertaining book, the latter half of it just feels lacking. I'm still glad I bought the book and will continue to by Breakwell's books. But this one is definitely not his best work. 3.5 hoots!

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Mogworld | Yahtzee Croshaw

Summary:

The first time Jim died, he was a magic student at a low quality school that got invaded by the barbarian school next door. He went to a place where he felt happy and content. Then he and a horde of others get brought back to life as zombies by a Lord Dreadgrave who employs them to protect his tower from adventurers. While Jim finds the work easy enough, he still keeps attempting to find ways to die again, even converting to almost every religion he can find out about and then killing himself. This routine gets thrown out, however, when Deleters come in and completely delete Dreadgrave, his tower, and all but three zombies from his horde. Jim, Meryl and the priest zombie must now figure out why the world is so messed up: Adventurers are getting hit with the Syndrome, normal people are unable to die, and Barry is following the word of Si-Mon and destroying everything.


Review:

I picked this book up because I enjoy Yahtzee's YouTube channel with my husband. I will say that it was very easy to read the entire book in Yahtzee's voice and greatly added to my enjoyment. I'm sorely tempted to buy the audio book, especially after hearing the sample, and I don't like audio books! It also really helped me to prepare for Yathzee's sense of humor. There were so many things in this book that made laugh. I've highlighted more passages from this book than any other in the past year.

"This was the second time I'd been asked to justify being afraid of gnolls, and I still couldn't fathom why. It was like being asked to explain why old people should wear clothing."

This book is high fantasy. You've got sorcerers, undead, clerics, adventurers, etc. At the same time, it's as much about high fantasy adventure as Sean of the Dead is about zombie movies. It's a delightful combination of strong story and satire. As much as this book made me laugh, it was the characters and the story that kept me from putting the book down. Each of the main protagonists is endearing in their own way. Though I will admit I may have liked Slippery John more if he didn't keep referring to himself in the third person. That got very annoying very quickly, but it was quite consistent with the character.

At the same time, I appreciated Yahtzee's less obvious jokes. At one point a character gets called out on saying the word "little" a lot: "Did you know you use the world 'little' an awful lot?" Then he proceeds to use words like "small", "tiny", "diminuitive", "miscroscopic" etc. When I picked up on what was going on, I laughed even harder! And there are so many jokes like this, ones where you really need to pay attention. They payoff is totally worth the focus required.

Yes, some of the big reveals were kinda predictable, but the story and the characters are so worth reading. And the ending was so satisfying! It wasn't the ending I thought I wanted until I read it. I happily give 5 hoots and have already added more of Yahtzee's books to my TBR!

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The Exorcism of Little Billy Wagner | Francis J. Flynn

*This book provided by the author for an honest review.

Summary:

This satirical novel tells the story of the events before, during and immediately after Billy Wagner's exorcism. We read about how responsibility gets passed from the archbishop to his underlings and then to their underlings, ending in the hands of Father Leo, a nice guy who just wants to go back to preaching in Bolivia. 

Review:

The thing that I love most about this story is that, if you're paying attention to the details, you can see what is really going on. You may think you know, but all of the facts aren't brought in to play until the final few chapters. While reading this book, I missed one or two things, but overall, it was pleasant to really see the puzzle come together. It did get me to sidetrack once or twice, as Father Leo sidetracked, regarding whether or not Billy is actually possessed or if it's something else.

I really enjoyed Flynn's establishment of character personalities. There was a lot of exposition about them, but they were, generally, entertaining side stories. Each person who thought themselves "perfect" or at least "beyond reproach" was clearly overlooking something others would find objectionable. Really the only people in this book I felt got worse than they deserved at any point were Father Leo and Bishop Waller.

I am very glad this book was listed as a satire because, if I thought this author was serious, it'd be a disappointing book. Knowing it was satire made it a lot of fun to read. I'll admit, anything non-fantasy, non-sci-fi or non-science isn't my usual genre, but I was happy to read this. If you like more realistic fiction with a good sense of humor, you'll enjoy this book. This really was a fun read. 4 hoots!

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How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety | American Association of Patriots

*Book received from Blogging For Books in exchange for an honest review.

Review:

This compilation of pamphlets from The American Association of Patriots is an enjoyable combination of satire and cat puns. I swear, each section must have been written by someone who challenged themselves to add as many cat puns as possible. I'll admit, I love puns, but even I was kinda getting tired of how many instances of "Expurrrrrt" and "Pawsitively" there were. Still, there is some legitimately good information in here, just replace "cat" with "kid". The importance of talking to your kids about gun safety, about online safety, and other things are legitimate concerns. Still, if you don't want to take this thing seriously, you don't have to. Just sit back and enjoy the puns and cat pictures. ^_^

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