Happy Hour of the Damned by Mark Henry
Another day, another book read. Today’s review is about a new book by Mark Henry a fellow Seattleite. Amazingly enough the book is set in Seattle as well. Ok not amazing, but cool none the less! Happy Hour of the Damned
Let me start by saying that zombies are really not my thing, and more than once felt myself fighting back a dry heave, upon reading some of the flesh eating, putrefying commentary. There was a line about a guy munching on an ear like a potato chip that almost did me in LOL. Give me a vampire and a little blood sucking any day! Pus and exploding bowels…not so much. It gives the phrase “no it doesn’t taste like chicken” a whole new meaning. Thankfully there are also vampires, werewolves, and a few succubi involved in the storyline. Despite my initial squeamishness, I dug in and really got into this groovy tale.
I think none of you will be surprised that Starbuck’s is featured and is at the center of a plot for global destruction. I commented to Mark that I would never look at bucky’s the same after reading this great book. Our local Safeway barista really has an undead look to her gaze. <shudder>
Amanda is a hip and sassy undead fashionista with a skin care regimen to make Liz Taylor proud. Really, even I learned some things from her!
This book was a slower read for me than usual. for the most part I can knock out a book in just a few hours. One thing that is different that slowed me down were a lot of footnotes. Pretty much on every page. But these weren’t your regular footnotes denoting resources, but a running commentary on whatever was going on. So, you have to read them to get the deeper nuances of some of the humor Mark presents. Since my normal Ellen Woodhead Sped Redding course mode of reading so fast I barely see the pages move wasn’t working, I found myself forgetting the footnotes and then remembering and having to go back. It isn’t critical that you read them, but they definitely add another dimension.
The humor presented in this book is definitely scathing and razor sharp. I pride myself on being fairly quick witted (no commentary from the Peanut Gallery needed thank you very much), but even I missed a few things that were thrown in, only to realize later what I had missed. So, it was good for a fun read, during and after. I am still chuckling about a few things. Plus I have a few new cocktail recipes to boot!
While I won’t be going out and digging up (ha ha) any new sources of Zombie reading material, I cannot WAIT for the next installment in the Amanda Feral chronicles “Road Trip of the Living Dead”.
Book stats:
- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Kensington (March 1, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0758225229
- ISBN-13: 978-0758225221
Purchase a copy of Happy Hour of the Damned by clicking this link
Books in the series in the order they should be read:
Happy Hour of the Damned
Road Trip of the Living Dead
Visit the author’s website by going here.
Visit the author’s blog by going here.
I love dark humor, so I’ll be grabbing a copy of this book asap!
This was a great book! Not for the faint of heart! but definitely a great book!
I am not really a big zombie fan myself, but if I were to be swayed to the dark side, lol, this book would make my must read list.
I love all types of books and I love zombies,l vampires and all that good stuff – or should I say dark stuff!! I have not read anything from Mark Henry yet but I think I will definitely check out this book as it sounds like there is a little humour and gore mixed together!!
I have not seen a book use footnotes that add to the story before and would be willing to pick up the book for that alone. I will add that I am squeamish and might not be able to finish the book after too many flesh eating references. Thanks for the heads-up. An informative and useful review.