I finished This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It by David Wong.
For those who don't know, Spiders is the sequel to John Dies at The End, a book that began as a short story on the Internet. The humble origins, and the writer being a Cracked.com writer, meant that the narration was a bit goofy at times, but I found myself forgiving the book its shortcomings and stayed up late at night just to find out what would happen next. If that's not a sign of a captivating book, I don't know what is. It also had the curious ability to be philosophical and somewhat creepy at moments and hilarious the next. It's not subtle most of the time, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Oh, and sometimes things get pulled right out of the author's ass, but you know what? I don't care. As a form of mindfuckery, it works.
It took me two days to read Spiders, all 485 pages of it, so it's business as usual in the page-turner department. It also contains several moments of horror, philosophy, comedy and completely random things happening (let's face it, it's not like Stephen King expains how magic and alien technology are possible, so it's still okay), but a part of the prequel's charm is missing. It's nothing I can put my finger on, but as a wild guess I'd say Spiders is a bit too focused for its own good; it takes itself too seriously. Maybe it's the "I've seen something like this before". On the whole though, it's probably the better of the two books, but I'll withhold judgment until I've given both novels a re-read and some time for them to sink in.
EDIT: Grammar/typo fix.
Post edited October 09, 2012 by AlKim