bedsitter23

I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You can judge a book by its cover sometimes and this one grabs attention. The book, like its cover is adrenaline filled excitement. It’s my first time reading Pargin and this reminds me a lot of Duane Swierczynski’s novels. Over the top, nonstop action.

Pargin gets compared a lot and I think that Chuck Palahniuk is an obvious place to start. The book is immensely readable even to people who probably don’t pick up a lot of books. There is a lot of cultural critique and references. Pargin ultimately sounds a hopeful and positive note. (Pargin seems to get a lot of Vonnegut comparisons too. I don’t see it but the authors are from two different eras)

In some ways these positives are probably also negatives (at least to some people). References to hot off the press items like Reddit, Bitcoin, Lyft, and Buc-ees convenience stores may not age well

But who cares? As those hippy 60s Sci Fi writers did much the same and are still loved for the way they could write.

I have to say that I really have no complaints with the book but I understand some who might. It is big and loud, obscene and profane, but you can probably tell that’s what you are signing up for when you look at the cover.

It switches character points of view often. Though for me, I thought this was fine. Pargin really provides some detailed memorable characters. I did like the plot too which was like a car crash.

I had no trouble guessing Pargin was a Gen Xer writing about a millennial. There were a few moments where it seemed the characters might get away from him. I do feel like part of me wants to pull apart some of the story. But the thing is I do think it generally works. It was a fun read and it is 400 pages which seems lengthy, I can’t say that I ever was bored or felt it dragged along. (It’s also tempting to say this as Palahniuk hit so big and his reputation seems to have mostly taken a beating. Pargin has also had a great deal of success and dabbles in this super- culturally aware high adrenaline adventure. I don’t think Pargin will go that route but if easy to think of the comparison).

Anyway, I dug it for what it was. If the idea of a novel that uses Reddit comments to move the plot along is not your bag, you should probably skip it. But if you like high octane over the top action, it’s pretty good.

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