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jpcapili's review
5.0
Since this was my first bizarro book, I read it with an open mind. It wasn't really off the wall and it's pretty relatable coming from someone who enjoys science fiction. It has time travel with lots of shovel-related violence and profanity. It's a lot of fun-- like watching an episode of Garbage Pale Kids on a Saturday morning! I'm sure there's an underlying moral lesson or deeper meaning that you could learn from the book, especially about the idea on self-preservation/survival. It's thought-provoking and was done in a subtle manner.
dantastic's review
4.0
Until he laid the egg, Manny's life consisted of hanging around his apartment and fishing coins out of fountains. Now, he's got a girlfriend of sorts and keeps getting harassed about the egg. So what's inside?
Sometimes, you read a book and wonder how the hell it ever got published. Other times, you read a book and it's so good you want to track the author down and call him a son of a bitch. The Egg Said Nothing is of the second type.
The Egg Said Nothing is quite a ride. Born out of an unholy union beteen National Novel Writing Month and the New Bizarro Author Series, Caris O'Malley introduces the reader to Manny, a shut-in who has an important destiny. If the story had only been about the relationship between Manny and Ashley, I'd probably have given it a 5. Caris wrote a quirky yet beautiful relationship, even more impressive because it's his first book. A girl that smells like old books? Sign me up! The egg seemed like an afterthought once Manny met Ashley. Then the egg broke and all hell broke loose.
I hate to admit it but while I enjoyed the time travel portion of the story quite a bit, I would have preferred more of the relationshippy stuff. Once the multiple Manny's showed up, I had a feeling how things were going to go down. The ending twist was well done, straight out of a Twilight Zone episode, brutal but somehow hopeful. There isn't a lot more I can say without giving too much away.
The verdict? 4.5 out of 5. This is not one to miss. I shall look forward to Caris' future endeavors with great interest.
Side Note: Obnoxious Goodreads authors take note. Caris O'Malley happens to be a fairly prominent reviewer on Goodreads and doesn't even have an author profile. Pretty sneaky. You can find an interview I did with him here
Sometimes, you read a book and wonder how the hell it ever got published. Other times, you read a book and it's so good you want to track the author down and call him a son of a bitch. The Egg Said Nothing is of the second type.
The Egg Said Nothing is quite a ride. Born out of an unholy union beteen National Novel Writing Month and the New Bizarro Author Series, Caris O'Malley introduces the reader to Manny, a shut-in who has an important destiny. If the story had only been about the relationship between Manny and Ashley, I'd probably have given it a 5. Caris wrote a quirky yet beautiful relationship, even more impressive because it's his first book. A girl that smells like old books? Sign me up! The egg seemed like an afterthought once Manny met Ashley. Then the egg broke and all hell broke loose.
I hate to admit it but while I enjoyed the time travel portion of the story quite a bit, I would have preferred more of the relationshippy stuff. Once the multiple Manny's showed up, I had a feeling how things were going to go down. The ending twist was well done, straight out of a Twilight Zone episode, brutal but somehow hopeful. There isn't a lot more I can say without giving too much away.
The verdict? 4.5 out of 5. This is not one to miss. I shall look forward to Caris' future endeavors with great interest.
Side Note: Obnoxious Goodreads authors take note. Caris O'Malley happens to be a fairly prominent reviewer on Goodreads and doesn't even have an author profile. Pretty sneaky. You can find an interview I did with him here
forlorncorn's review
4.0
Enjoyable through and through. Like a comedic 12 monkeys. I just wish eraserhead press would stop publishing these shitty green generic covers. A large part of having weird books like these is showing them to friends and family and the green poop hue of the covers is cramping my bookshelves style.
hsienhsien27's review
5.0
This was free and why not read it? The cover has American Gothic with egg heads. It's bizarro. It's wonderful. I didn't think it was possible to write such beautiful prose with such cartoonish characters. The plot of the story is odd. The main guy wakes up with an egg between his legs. He meets a nice girl. And then he discovers some weird stuff. But out of all the weird stuff, it's all a prediction for an incoming prophecy. A prophecy that a lot of people, mostly men, don't really want to happen. It's so odd how this bizarro book has broken the fabric of bizarro. It's like so meaningful and thought provoking, a coming of age, but at the same time it's like a comedic slasher film. Like what the hell. It's so loveable. And the character grows from this misanthropic nobody that gains his income from stealing wishes in a well to losing himself in hopes of saving his only loved one. Now with that think about it, the main character reminds me a lot of Donny Darko. The plot itself, all of those twists, except this one has clones and eggs. And the main character is a lot more "Darko." You can delete my blog now. Please don't.
"I rewired my thoughts, pirated my own intentions. I made myself a loser, a loner, unable to have a relationship with another person. I forced myself into hiding."
Rating: 5
Originally posted here: http://wordsnotesandfiction.blogspot.com/2015/06/mini-reviews-of-mini-books-how-to-kill.html
"I rewired my thoughts, pirated my own intentions. I made myself a loser, a loner, unable to have a relationship with another person. I forced myself into hiding."
Rating: 5
Originally posted here: http://wordsnotesandfiction.blogspot.com/2015/06/mini-reviews-of-mini-books-how-to-kill.html
sheldonnylander's review
4.0
Caris O'Malley must be clairvoyant, because in writing The Egg Said Nothing, he has clearly been channeling the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut. This is not a bad thing, however, as Vonnegut is one of this reviewer's favorite writers of all time.
Manny is a shut-in and a loner. He sits in his dark apartment, up all night watching late night television. He pays his bills by stealing change from local fountains (he justifies this by saying that they are no longer people's wishes once they hit corporate waters and become extra income for those who don't need it). He has a somewhat sketchy relationship with his senile mother. Until he wakes up one morning to find that he has laid an egg. Or he thinks he's laid an egg. All he knows is that he woke up with an egg sitting between his legs. Where else could it have come from? So you start to wonder if this is going to be more Kafkaesque and if Manny is going to turn into a chicken.
Thus begins Manny breaking from his routine has he tries to nurture the egg like any loving parent would do. Well, a loving parent from another species, maybe, but a loving parent nonetheless. He meets and starts a relationship with Ashley, a waitress at a local diner. And then thing really take off and his life takes a turn for the weird as he discovers the true contents of the egg an begins receiving messages and visitations from himself in the future.
“Listen: Manny has come unstuck in time.” Or that's what I expected to read at some point. The second half of the novel is heavily steeped in time travel and determinism. Like I said, O'Malley would probably make Vonnegut proud. As he starts to play with time very heavily, it can get a bit confusing, especially in keeping track of Manny's different selves as they appear and disappear, not to mention the true nature of the egg. Early on, you start to wonder why this title would be part of the Bizarro fiction line of books as it seems unusually normal during the first half or so (aside from the protagonist laying an egg), but about halfway through the weirdness is ramped up big time.
This becomes a problem. The heavy weirdness starts so fast after a somewhat leisurely pace that the reader could feel like they're getting literary whiplash. As such, uneven pacing contributes to some of the confusion I felt during the second half of the book. The reader might actually feel the need to start keeping a flowchart just to keep things straight in their head. I'll admit that I was trying to mentally do so. Then again, with novels that play with time, this isn't always unusual. On the other hand, the author kicks it up a few notches, making it feel like you need to be a Timelord to figure out who, what, and when people are from.
Despite this gripe, The Egg Said Nothing is still an excellent story that deserves your attention. At its heart, when you strip away the science fiction elements and the weirdness, it becomes a novel about the ultimate loser trying to break out of his own shell and not be such a loser anymore, to be someone and do something that matters, and how the most insignificant person could change the world simply by existing.
The Egg Said Nothing gets a solid 4 out of 5 stars. I hope this is not the last we'll see of Caris O'Malley, as I would really like to read more from him. My only suggestion is that he works on his pacing a little bit.
Manny is a shut-in and a loner. He sits in his dark apartment, up all night watching late night television. He pays his bills by stealing change from local fountains (he justifies this by saying that they are no longer people's wishes once they hit corporate waters and become extra income for those who don't need it). He has a somewhat sketchy relationship with his senile mother. Until he wakes up one morning to find that he has laid an egg. Or he thinks he's laid an egg. All he knows is that he woke up with an egg sitting between his legs. Where else could it have come from? So you start to wonder if this is going to be more Kafkaesque and if Manny is going to turn into a chicken.
Thus begins Manny breaking from his routine has he tries to nurture the egg like any loving parent would do. Well, a loving parent from another species, maybe, but a loving parent nonetheless. He meets and starts a relationship with Ashley, a waitress at a local diner. And then thing really take off and his life takes a turn for the weird as he discovers the true contents of the egg an begins receiving messages and visitations from himself in the future.
“Listen: Manny has come unstuck in time.” Or that's what I expected to read at some point. The second half of the novel is heavily steeped in time travel and determinism. Like I said, O'Malley would probably make Vonnegut proud. As he starts to play with time very heavily, it can get a bit confusing, especially in keeping track of Manny's different selves as they appear and disappear, not to mention the true nature of the egg. Early on, you start to wonder why this title would be part of the Bizarro fiction line of books as it seems unusually normal during the first half or so (aside from the protagonist laying an egg), but about halfway through the weirdness is ramped up big time.
This becomes a problem. The heavy weirdness starts so fast after a somewhat leisurely pace that the reader could feel like they're getting literary whiplash. As such, uneven pacing contributes to some of the confusion I felt during the second half of the book. The reader might actually feel the need to start keeping a flowchart just to keep things straight in their head. I'll admit that I was trying to mentally do so. Then again, with novels that play with time, this isn't always unusual. On the other hand, the author kicks it up a few notches, making it feel like you need to be a Timelord to figure out who, what, and when people are from.
Despite this gripe, The Egg Said Nothing is still an excellent story that deserves your attention. At its heart, when you strip away the science fiction elements and the weirdness, it becomes a novel about the ultimate loser trying to break out of his own shell and not be such a loser anymore, to be someone and do something that matters, and how the most insignificant person could change the world simply by existing.
The Egg Said Nothing gets a solid 4 out of 5 stars. I hope this is not the last we'll see of Caris O'Malley, as I would really like to read more from him. My only suggestion is that he works on his pacing a little bit.
djinn_n_juice's review
4.0
Caris done good.
There's that moment in the shitty middle Matrix movie where out of nowhere, hundreds of copies of Mr. Smith come pouring in. It's visually my favorite moment in the trilogy. It's wonderfully over-the-top and surreal. This book is like that.
It's also like when, in Timecrimes, you realize that the hero has royally fucked himself irreparably by dicking around with time, and you have a dawning sense of horror that things cannot, will not go back to how they were at first. (If you haven't seen this movie, GO GO GO GO GO! Wait, stop. Read The Egg Said Nothing. Then, GO GO GO GO GO!)
But, it's also a little like the sweet romance from Amelie, love spewing up believably from the dirty streets of Paris or wherever, and with both parts of the pair interesting and independent, neither just a foil for the other. It's like that, too.
This book proves that the inside of Caris's head is just as bizarre and unusual as the outside. We've always suspected this, but only now has it been proven.
First, Mr. O'Malley avoids all of the stumbling blocks I would've expected a bizarro book to trip over and crack its skull, and then lie there, bleeding and twitching on the pavement of mediocrity while everyone just walks past, with briefcases full of more pressing literary engagements, until some kids who watch too much pro wrestling come up and jack it for its Nikes....I don't know how that plays into the metaphor. Whatever. This book is chock full of murders via shovel, and YES, it's gratuitous. But, the gratuitous violence is secondary to a wicked-awesome plot that moves at five hundred miles an hour, steered with the precision of a skilled wordsmith until it runs at full speed into the brick wall of the inevitable conclusion.
And it's fucking hilarous. I completely disagree with Christy's review: I think the dialogue isn't entirely believable, but the awkwardness of the dialogue reflects the characters, and adds another kind of humour to an already hilarious book. The way our protagonist speaks to the guy who just tried to murder him?! The stilted conversations between the lovers?! the casualness with which the character brings up silent film stars?! It doesn't make the character believable, per se, but it makes the character vividly unreal, like the characters in the Gormenghast trilogy. (If you haven't read this, GO GO GO GO GO!) I mean, this motherfucker's day job is fountain diving for change. That alone had me laughing pretty much every time it happened.
Why only four stars? Well, this novella does a good job of exposing the confused, soggy underbelly of time travel, by giving us a story where there's literally so much time travel going on that, for a portion of the novella, I couldn't figure out the semantics of how any of it was working. I get lost in action sequences anyway, but when you have an action sequence with five versions of the same person involved, GAAAAAH! Confusion will strike me upside the head. Like a shovel.
And, although the book caught me off guard at numerous times, the ending seemed inevitable from early on. Also, as a reader, the egg didn't really do anything for the plot, other than serving as a symbol. (Granted, I might have guessed this from the title...)
SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPIOLERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILER
And Meredith is down in the comments, screaming at me that the egg is the most important part. This is something I'm not sure I buy. Let me see if I can freewrite myself to understanding WTF she's talking about...after all, the egg is the beginning, the germination of Manny's idea about gender equality, and is also clearly a symbol of his femininity, a symbol of motherhood, which is his ability to take care of and nourish someone else--hence his newfound ability to love homegirl. But, then, it gets broken inadvertently, and there's a DVD inside of it that has himself from the future on it. I guess, from the point the egg breaks, I lose track of how it functions symbolically. But, Meredith is a smart cookie, and I read most of the novella while a little bit intoxicated, so I might just not get it.
Anyway, I'm also trying to take into account my fanatacism for The O'Malley himself...I may not be the president of his fan club, but I have fed him pasta and played with his baby. So, I'm trying to view my own love for this book with a grain of salt.
I have an uncle who is a songwriter down in New Orleans, who does really clever and well-written countryblues songs, but I would've probably given his CD three stars initially. Quite a while after I first listened to it, my parents had it on at their house, and it was playing in a different room, so I couldn't really hear the vocals, but it sounded SO FUCKING GOOD. And I said to dad, "What are you listening to? It's really fucking good!" (Except I didn't drop the 'F' bomb, because if I dropped it around my dad, he would've hit me in the face with a shovel. That's how my parents dealt with swearing.) And he said, "That's your uncle Jim's band," and THAT'S when I realized it really was a five star CD, and I wasn't just inflating my opinion of it because my uncle is awesome.
So, I might be doing a little of that here. Then again, Caris got five stars from just about everyone, so he can fucking deal.
grantf's review
3.0
Frustratingly, the first half of this book was 5-star material but the second half was so rushed that there wasn't sufficient opportunity to explore the time-looping scenarios in any kind of satisfying detail. The story felt like it was heading for [b:The Man Who Folded Himself|624122|The Man Who Folded Himself|David Gerrold|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344701884s/624122.jpg|610483] territory but then it just seemed to fizzle out. I don't think it's the relatively short length of the book that is to blame - see [b:All You Zombies|13030110|All You Zombies|Robert A. Heinlein|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1338513108s/13030110.jpg|18193411] for a concise and very successful attempt at a similar kind of thing.
While reading this I was reminded of the excellent film Triangle where the viewer mostly only sees one of two closed, intersecting time loops. That works well (unless you think about it too hard) because you get all the information you need, but in this book the loop we follow seems to be too "tight"; the protagonist never gets a chance to discover all the things he's supposed to learn in the future.
The writing is excellent and often hilarious and I'd certainly read more books by this author. I'd love there to be a follow-up to this book or perhaps an expanded edition showing the missing loops.
Also, the first line is a classic!
While reading this I was reminded of the excellent film Triangle where the viewer mostly only sees one of two closed, intersecting time loops. That works well (unless you think about it too hard) because you get all the information you need, but in this book the loop we follow seems to be too "tight"; the protagonist never gets a chance to discover all the things he's supposed to learn in the future.
The writing is excellent and often hilarious and I'd certainly read more books by this author. I'd love there to be a follow-up to this book or perhaps an expanded edition showing the missing loops.
Also, the first line is a classic!
"~Chapter 1~ In which the narrator lays an egg, keeps it warm and royally fucks some guy up with a shovel"
sarahconnor89757's review
2.0
As I was reading this book I got a call from a friend who asked what I was doing and I said "Reading a book about a guy who lays an egg" and she said "Oh, no." That's a good sign for a bizarro book.
The story itself is pretty charming and steers itself away from being convoluted and so I believe the author might be able to do something with the right story, but this wasn't it. It was just too many misses and not enough hits.
A lot of unimportant things happen that is pretty frustrating in a novella of this size but the fact that there is a tiny summery of the upcoming chapter under each chapter header makes reading the book all but useless.
The dialogue is completely normal to totally awkward, such as, "Hey, you stupid fuck, apologize for frightening me so."
The story itself is pretty charming and steers itself away from being convoluted and so I believe the author might be able to do something with the right story, but this wasn't it. It was just too many misses and not enough hits.
A lot of unimportant things happen that is pretty frustrating in a novella of this size but the fact that there is a tiny summery of the upcoming chapter under each chapter header makes reading the book all but useless.
The dialogue is completely normal to totally awkward, such as, "Hey, you stupid fuck, apologize for frightening me so."
thekarpuk's review
4.0
A review in which no one is hit with a shovel, but the act is discussed.
I'm not sure if adding someone as a friend on Goodreads because they write witty reviews is enough of a pretext to give the automatic five stars, but it's a lot easier when the book is actually good.
From an unknown it would probably be a four star book, which is a pretty glowing recommendation from me.
This book is funny. I know it seems like a plain statement, but I don't get many chuckles from books. Most authors going for laughs try so damn hard that I almost have to dry my hands from all the flop-sweat seeping off the pages.
O'Malley learned the dark secret of funny writing: The premise should probably be humorous too. And a guy whose life is basically ruined by future versions of himself is a pretty darn humorous set up.
It's story of man vs. self and man vs. man all at same time. And a whole love of shovel murder is committed, which seems oddly consistent.
I appreciated that the protagonist wasn't quirky cute weird, but genuinely strange, stealing change from fountains to get by and hanging out at laundromats to stare at strangers. It gave the nuttiness some authenticity.
Time travel should be taken less seriously more often.
I'm not sure if adding someone as a friend on Goodreads because they write witty reviews is enough of a pretext to give the automatic five stars, but it's a lot easier when the book is actually good.
From an unknown it would probably be a four star book, which is a pretty glowing recommendation from me.
This book is funny. I know it seems like a plain statement, but I don't get many chuckles from books. Most authors going for laughs try so damn hard that I almost have to dry my hands from all the flop-sweat seeping off the pages.
O'Malley learned the dark secret of funny writing: The premise should probably be humorous too. And a guy whose life is basically ruined by future versions of himself is a pretty darn humorous set up.
It's story of man vs. self and man vs. man all at same time. And a whole love of shovel murder is committed, which seems oddly consistent.
I appreciated that the protagonist wasn't quirky cute weird, but genuinely strange, stealing change from fountains to get by and hanging out at laundromats to stare at strangers. It gave the nuttiness some authenticity.
Time travel should be taken less seriously more often.
daviddavidkatzman's review
5.0
The Egg Said Nothing is a hot mess of awesome-sauce. It's hard to avoid spoilers when discussing this book, but I've dosed this review with them liberally.
First off, the main character is a hot mess. He can barely keep his shit together. An utter basket case who would likely be a suicide risk if observed by a doctor. The guy lives off. He has zero relationships...until now...Dunt, duh-dunt duhnnn! MAJOR SPOILER:
Second off, the plot involves a hot mess of*. The Egg Said Nothing has a web of that looks like this:
It's like an angry fist of. Really, don't try to make sense of it. Don't. Don't think too hard. Just enjoy the brilliance of (MAJOR SPOILER) . It hardly matters if it could really be charted out logically. The Egg Said Nothing is not a logical story; it's an emotional one. The Egg Said Nothing is a story about self-hatred. Delusion. It's a metaphor for how we sabotage ourselves. It's about blame...with maybe a little forgiveness. It's about how a twisted childhood can result in a loop of self-destruction.
This is a short novella, so there's no reason not to give it a read. It might just give you a good whack in the head with a shovel...treat your kids right or the results won't be pretty. Although it might make for an interesting story.
*The back of the book does give away this particular plot twist, but I'm not going to give it away here. I usually don't read the backs of books because I prefer to let the author take me through the plot.
First off, the main character is a hot mess. He can barely keep his shit together. An utter basket case who would likely be a suicide risk if observed by a doctor. The guy lives off
Spoiler
spare change collected from water fountains, and his mother's deceased husband's pensionSpoiler
He kills her. Sort of. Not sort of kills her, she is killed. It's just sort of him. Ermm. Never mind.Second off, the plot involves a hot mess of
Spoiler
time travelSpoiler
time traveling lines It's like an angry fist of
Spoiler
pathways through time and spaceSpoiler
a guy who goes back in time over and over again trying to kill himself in an orgy of self-suicide bombersThis is a short novella, so there's no reason not to give it a read. It might just give you a good whack in the head with a shovel...treat your kids right or the results won't be pretty. Although it might make for an interesting story.
*The back of the book does give away this particular plot twist, but I'm not going to give it away here. I usually don't read the backs of books because I prefer to let the author take me through the plot.