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A review by esdeecarlson
Bela Lugosi's Dead by Robert Guffey
1.0
**This book was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.**
I picked up this book because I’m a big fan of classic horror films, and the blurb made it seem like it would be filled with interesting tidbits for film geeks along with an intriguing semi-mystery plot.
Well, the interesting film tidbits were there.
I get that the main character is intentionally unlikable and unreliable. I understand the reasons for it. That said, the plot and side characters did not pay off enough for me to feel like putting up with the main character was worth it. There are unlikable main characters in a lot of great literature, and you come out of the read feeling you’ve gained something from the experience.
I don’t think I’ve gained anything at all by spending a few hours with this character. Perhaps because I’ve seen so many of his kind before, and now I’m tired and bored of it: the narcissistic wannabe writer who mistreats his manic pixie dream girl and then has a downward spiral. There’s nothing new about this. The only real innovation is that the actual plot is spliced together with our wannabe writer protagonist’s bad movie crossover fanfiction, which at first I thought might lead us somewhere interesting, but frankly, the payoff just did not pay off.
The story doesn’t even try very hard to do anything with the character. Sure, at least the author clearly recognizes that he’s an asshole; the narration makes it clear that no one else is impressed when he pushes his girlfriend and blames his career failures on the women in his life (mom and girlfriends) being ‘unsupportive’ while they finance his deadbeat ass. But weirdly, everyone we meet who this guy shows his writing to agrees it’s strong work and has potential. Comparing his hastily written Bela Lugosi biopic to ‘Citizen Kane’ just because the storyline he comes up with on the fly is nonlinear was, I thought, meant to be played as a joke on the character’s ridiculous delusions of grandeur—but then other people read the screenplay and think it’s brilliant.
If you are a HUGE early Hollywood horror fan, you may be able to glean enough from the campy qualities of this book to amuse you. There’s a great side character who owns a bookshop just to house his collection of geeky film memorabilia, and that setting is a lot of fun to spend time in. But the main character and main plot were, in my opinion, uninteresting and vaguely distasteful.
I picked up this book because I’m a big fan of classic horror films, and the blurb made it seem like it would be filled with interesting tidbits for film geeks along with an intriguing semi-mystery plot.
Well, the interesting film tidbits were there.
I get that the main character is intentionally unlikable and unreliable. I understand the reasons for it. That said, the plot and side characters did not pay off enough for me to feel like putting up with the main character was worth it. There are unlikable main characters in a lot of great literature, and you come out of the read feeling you’ve gained something from the experience.
I don’t think I’ve gained anything at all by spending a few hours with this character. Perhaps because I’ve seen so many of his kind before, and now I’m tired and bored of it: the narcissistic wannabe writer who mistreats his manic pixie dream girl and then has a downward spiral. There’s nothing new about this. The only real innovation is that the actual plot is spliced together with our wannabe writer protagonist’s bad movie crossover fanfiction, which at first I thought might lead us somewhere interesting, but frankly, the payoff just did not pay off.
The story doesn’t even try very hard to do anything with the character. Sure, at least the author clearly recognizes that he’s an asshole; the narration makes it clear that no one else is impressed when he pushes his girlfriend and blames his career failures on the women in his life (mom and girlfriends) being ‘unsupportive’ while they finance his deadbeat ass. But weirdly, everyone we meet who this guy shows his writing to agrees it’s strong work and has potential. Comparing his hastily written Bela Lugosi biopic to ‘Citizen Kane’ just because the storyline he comes up with on the fly is nonlinear was, I thought, meant to be played as a joke on the character’s ridiculous delusions of grandeur—but then other people read the screenplay and think it’s brilliant.
If you are a HUGE early Hollywood horror fan, you may be able to glean enough from the campy qualities of this book to amuse you. There’s a great side character who owns a bookshop just to house his collection of geeky film memorabilia, and that setting is a lot of fun to spend time in. But the main character and main plot were, in my opinion, uninteresting and vaguely distasteful.