You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore (1/5 stars)

I found out (after reading this book) that it was the sequel to "Bloodsucking Fiends" and also had characters in it from "A Dirty Job". I didn't know that when I read it. I have read two other Moore books "The Stupidest Angle" and "Fool". I thought "The Stupidest Angel" was so so; I absolutely adored "Fool". I thought "You Suck"...well, I thought it really sucked.

I thought the first page of the book was funny and it went downhill from there. Tommy gets turned into a vampire by his girlfriend and his girlfriend is supposed to be getting out of town. But, Tommy bronzed the old vamp who turned his girlfriend into a vampire so that old vamp is still around. Then Tommy's friends go to Las Vegas and blow all their money on a Blue Hooker. That basically was the story. Does it make sense to you? Well it didn't really make sense to me and there didn't seem to be a point to it.

I didn't really like any of the characters that much; the only character worth speaking of is Abby the goth girl. She was funny at parts, but even her long slang filled journal entries got boring to slog through after a while. I never figured out what the point of the story was; there wasn't anything of interest (or even urgency) propelling the story forward. All the characters ran around in a confused daze with no purpose what-so-ever. Now remember I have read Moore a couple times before so I know that that is part of his charm, but this book was ridiculous.

I didn't find any of the humor to be particularly clever (unless you are a twelve year old boy - this is a general statement I am not trying to stereotype 12 yr old boys...). I had a really, really hard time finishing this book. I put it down and said "forget this waste of time" more then once. Then in the last fourth of the book things picked up, so I decided to finish it. Then there was the ending, which was just plain stupid and screamed that Moore didn't want to write this book and had no idea how to finish it.

This book really knocked Moore down a few points in my opinion. I probably should have picked a better book of his to read. I am still interested in reading "Lamb" because I love a good parody of religion as much as the next person. But I won't be reading any more Moore books for a bit until the disappointment of this book clears through my system. If I hadn't read "Fool" before this book there would be no more Moore in my future (sorry for the horrible more Moore phrases....).

The Fool by Christopher Moore (5/5 stars)

I have only read one Christopher Moore book previous to this one and that was "The Stupidest Angel". While I enjoyed that book, it didn't make me a huge Moore fan...I thought a lot of it was kind of silly. When I heard that Moore was tackling the tale of King Lear and telling it from a fool's perspective; well that got my attention. I actually listened to this on audio book and the audio book production was extremely well done and probably contributed to how much I loved this book.

So you know the tale of King Lear...well if you don't look it up on wikipedia really quick and read a synopsis...this is a re-telling of that story. There are many exceptions, for example the witches from MacBeth are in here too, the timeline the story takes place in is questionable, and the Fool is the main character (he doesn't play that huge of a part in the original). The story is told from the viewpoint of the Black Fool. You have all your King Lear characters plus others, including the Fool's idiot apprentice Drool. There is much murder, foullanguage , and shagging...I mean a ton of it really; really the story is mostly shagging and murder and swearing....still it ends up being a really good story.

If you like Monty Python, or any type of inaccurate crude medieval humor this book is for you. In fact if you get your kicks out of watching British comedy in general; this is the book for you. That is as long as you have a strongstomach for foul language and shagging. I could not believe how much swearing and shagging are in this book...okay well I think I have driven that point home enough. In short this book was a riot, and I mean that in the modern positive sense of the word.

Moore whisks us through the antics of King Lear in a way that is entertaining, hilarious, intelligent, and somehow even a bit heartwarming. The characters are wonderful. The Fool is an amazing character, despite (or maybe because of) all of his antics he is am easy character to love. Lear's daughters are also entertaining, as is Lear himself. I was really impressed with how this book mishmashed so many things together to come up with a darkly humorous story that is actually somewhat touching.

King Lear purists should look away. Moore himself talks about the inaccuracies and liberties he takes with Lear's story in an excerpt at the end of the book; it was interesting to read how Moore prepared for this book and how he choose time settings, etc. Anyone who gets uncomfortable hearing the term "Shagging" in the context of a Shakespearean play may also want to steer clear of this one.

This book is one that will have me picking up more of Moore's books. Hilarious, intelligently witty, and a great all around story this was an excellent read that had me laughing out loud in pure joy, dark humor, and irony.