By David Wong

Rating: 5/5

Three Word Summary: Full of Spiders

The title of this book is extremely accurate. This book is, indeed, full of spiders. The huge, parasitic, alien, mind-controlling type of spiders, that is.

I’m glad that the title is accurate. Because this book’s predecessor, John Dies at the End, was misleading. Because despite what you were told, John (spoiler alert) does not die at the end. Or at all.

In fact, he’s alive enough to appear in this more-aptly titled sequel with his best friend Dave, Dave’s one-handed girl friend Amy and her seemingly magical dog Molly. Together this band of misfits fight the forces of the unknown, a.k.a. the aforementioned spiders.

Their methods are unorthodox. Their weapons are ludicrous. Their motives are questionable. But they get results. Not always good results. But there are usually some kind of results.

For instance, the result of this book was simultaneously hilarious and terrifying. Wong (a pseudonym for Jason Pargin) has a unique way of seeing things. A way that some would describe as brilliant and others would write-off as disturbingly sociopathic. Luckily, I am one of the former.

Wong’s off-kilter brand of horror-humor may not appeal to all, but there’s no denying that both books are well-written and the characters fully-developed. That’s in part because the both refuse to blend into any stereotype people will try to fit them into.

Dave and John are different. They’re a mix between Clerks and Ghostbusters — slackers with a serious understanding that they’re the only ones who can save the world. That’s thanks in part to a mysterious living drug called Soy Sauce and living in a mysterious town called [Undisclosed].

This Book is moved along by a few ominous countdowns, leading up to a series of horrific events during the wide-scale zombie-spider epidemic. There’s a satisfyingly Lovecraftian-undertone to the whole story and I’ll spoil it by letting you know that someone does die at the end.