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mrfrank's review
2.0
I grabbed this to review for the Books, Beer and Bullshit podcast. The author, D.J. Goodman was an unknown to me. The title sold my co-host and I agreed it held some intrigue for me as well. That is where the excitement ended.
THE ONE STOP APOCALYPSE SHOP had me hoping for something like Clerks meets The Walking Dead. What I got was some convoluted Scooby-Doo caper. That's not to say it was a bad story, it wasn't. It wasn't a great story either. This dragged in far too many places. There were lots of tries at humor, some worked others really beat a joke into the ground. At other points in the book, I found the author wrote himself into a corner and did a poor job of writing his way out. Too many happy coincidences and conviences for me to appreciate.
Also, the world exists part time with monsters. One of those Harry Potter type worlds where the normal people can't see the quirky otherworld where vampires, werewolves and monsters walk the streets among us when the moon comes up. I wish the writer would have committed to a full time monster world, not the shadow one. I think it would have sold the story better and caused a few less of those pesky plot holes he kept writing himself into.
This book was a great idea but was poorly executed in my opinion. It felt like the story lost its way somewhere along the line and became something it shouldn't have been. It's a good enough story. Not great, barely good. That could just be my expectations going into the book for being one thing and getting treated to something else when reading past the cover.
THE ONE STOP APOCALYPSE SHOP had me hoping for something like Clerks meets The Walking Dead. What I got was some convoluted Scooby-Doo caper. That's not to say it was a bad story, it wasn't. It wasn't a great story either. This dragged in far too many places. There were lots of tries at humor, some worked others really beat a joke into the ground. At other points in the book, I found the author wrote himself into a corner and did a poor job of writing his way out. Too many happy coincidences and conviences for me to appreciate.
Also, the world exists part time with monsters. One of those Harry Potter type worlds where the normal people can't see the quirky otherworld where vampires, werewolves and monsters walk the streets among us when the moon comes up. I wish the writer would have committed to a full time monster world, not the shadow one. I think it would have sold the story better and caused a few less of those pesky plot holes he kept writing himself into.
This book was a great idea but was poorly executed in my opinion. It felt like the story lost its way somewhere along the line and became something it shouldn't have been. It's a good enough story. Not great, barely good. That could just be my expectations going into the book for being one thing and getting treated to something else when reading past the cover.
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