The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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Erika Lopez, �They Call Me Mad Dog!�

Started January 2 � Finished January 6, 2005; 320 pages. Posted 06 February 2005

Shelving books in the store can get pretty mind numbing, particularly since I don�t need to hum the alphabet song in order to figure out where a book should be placed. So on these days where there is a lot to put away, my mind starts to wander.

It was around the end of December, and I was thinking about what book I wanted to read for the first of the year. I hadn�t really thought about this before, with the exception of the Kevin Murphy book in 2003. But, for whatever reason, I wanted the book that I started this year with to have a statement. A message. A summary of how I felt.

So while I was shelving I looked at the book in my hand. When I saw the subtitle, I turned around and bought it.

The subtitle reads, �A novel for bitter, lonely people.�

There�s a lot about the book, based on appearance alone, that could make me hate this. It�s written out in handwriting instead of regular typeface, and it has things like pseudo-smudges and things crossed out or written over.

I generally don�t like these kinds of gimmicks. To me it�s like a band like Gwar, or someone of their ilk who do lots of things like blow fire or smash things or whatever to try and shock people � most of the time it feels like they�re doing it to distract you from the fact that they suck as musicians.

But it is possible for a band to do all the outrageous things and be good musicians, and it is possible for the book to have al this quirkiness and be an excellent novel.

Although it�s kind of odd calling this a novel � it reads almost like a blog except that it�s laugh out loud funny, and it�s totally filthy.

So am I, so you can see why I liked it. And now there�s yet another author that I�m going to have to pick up all her other books. This is why I�ll never catch up.

I can see why it�s for the bitter and the lonely � it�s so hysterically funny that you forget your own problems. I certainly did.

But I�ve since finished it.

Sigh.


Rating: Worth New!

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