Spend Your Friends Like Pennies

John dies at the end. That's not a spoiler, that's the title. How could I not read a book with a title like that? Just with the title alone, it already had me wondering in which unconventional way the character would die, so that it would not leave me disappointed having known in advance that he would. Before reading the book, I settled upon the idea of John reaching the ripe old age of 97 or so and then, like the title promised, die. This may have happened. This may not have. It's up to you to decide if you want to find out.

The book John Dies at the End is by Jason Pargin, the editor in cheif of Cracked.com (at least as of 2009, if not still) writing as his main character David Wong (Okay, I just checked - he writes on there as David Wong as well). When I read that in the back inside flap of the book cover, I immediately anticipated an exciting, humorous book. Cracked.com are the people who give us all of the fun articles like "5 Bad Ideas Humanity is Sticking with Out of Habit," which you can read here. Unfortunately, the dust jacket was the most interesting part of this entire book.

The worst thing is that this book lacks structure. It takes on the form of some kid telling a story and making it up as he goes along, trying to be more and more absurd with each sentence. If Wong was going for absurd, he got it. If he was going for interesting, however, I found it lacking. At many times during the book, it seemed like the story should be over. However, Wong (the character) kept telling the reporter, with whom he was sharing his story, to sit down, because that wasn't even the best part of the story. He would then proceed to relate an entirely different story, linked to the first with nothing but the weak theme that he strings along throughout the book: "Weird, disgusting evil creatures are trying to take over the world, and we have to do all of this boring, improbable stuff to stop them!!"

Wong wasn't lying when he said "you haven't heard the best part yet". He seemed to be saving his "best" stuff for last, as I can honestly say that the epilogue was pretty decent. But I never would have gotten there if I weren't required to finish this book. It wouldn't have been worth my time. Fortunately, the two or so weeks that I spend reading this will save me from sitting through the two to three hours of the movie of the same name to be released in 2012. I can't get my two weeks back, but at least I'll never have to experience this story again.

P.S. Not all of the writing was bad, just the story. The line from which I borrow my title has a character saying that he didn't want to "spend [his] friends like pennies" by bringing danger into their lives. I enjoyed this simile, although I don't usually spend my pennies. I keep them in a jar on my desk. I wonder which is worse :)