Hey, guys! One of my best friends had been trying to get me to read this book for the better part of two years, so here I am. There were some fantastic parts and some... not as great parts. Fair warning, this book is not for everyone. Its main positive is its quirky sense of humor, which may not align with your own. Be careful when deciding whether you want to read it or not!
The Cover:
The Cover:
It shows a skeleton and a giant X with a dotted line after it. I'm not sure who the skeleton is supposed to be. (If you know, please comment!) But, I like the X/ dotted line thing. It makes the cover look like a contract, which works well in this book. B cover
Official Description:
A charmingly gothic, fiendishly funny Faustian tale about a brilliant scientist who makes a deal with the Devil, twice.
Johannes Cabal sold his soul years ago in order to learn the laws of necromancy. Now he wants it back. Amused and slightly bored, Satan proposes a little wager: Johannes has to persuade one hundred people to sign over their souls or he will be damned forever. This time for real. Accepting the bargain, Jonathan is given one calendar year and a traveling carnival to complete his task. With little time to waste, Johannes raises a motley crew from the dead and enlists his brother, Horst, a charismatic vampire to help him run his nefarious road show, resulting in mayhem at every turn.
My Review:
The sense of humor in this book is kind of like Lemony Snicket and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It uses irony and heavy heaps of sarcasm to tell its story. The sort of dry British humor that you rather love or don't get. The Necromancer definitely succeeded in being funny. The question is beyond that.
The plot was a bit slow. It, in and of itself, was interesting, but occasionally would go on tangents that didn't really go anywhere. An example of this was a ten-page-or-so segment from the poorly spelled perspective of a little kid at the Cabal Carnival. It was obviously in the book to make a joke, but that segment just didn't entertain me and was a struggle for me to get through.
That was my only main problem with this book: the jokes that didn't quite go over well.
The characters were interesting. I loved the dynamics they had with one another, especially Horst and Johannas's dynamic. I'll let you know that there was always a LOT of banter. That being said, all the characters other than Johannas and Horst were one dimensional. They didn't need to be complex, but they were lacking in a little realism.
Overall, it was a slow book, but I enjoyed its dry sense of humor. If you like that sort of thing, give it a shot! If not, this book probably isn't for you.
Will I read the next book, The Detective? I'm not sure yet. I probably won't, unless I get in the mood for this type of humor at some point.
Phrase:
You just need to fill out a few forms...
Happy Reading!
The Cover:
It shows a skeleton and a giant X with a dotted line after it. I'm not sure who the skeleton is supposed to be. (If you know, please comment!) But, I like the X/ dotted line thing. It makes the cover look like a contract, which works well in this book. B cover
Official Description:
A charmingly gothic, fiendishly funny Faustian tale about a brilliant scientist who makes a deal with the Devil, twice.
Johannes Cabal sold his soul years ago in order to learn the laws of necromancy. Now he wants it back. Amused and slightly bored, Satan proposes a little wager: Johannes has to persuade one hundred people to sign over their souls or he will be damned forever. This time for real. Accepting the bargain, Jonathan is given one calendar year and a traveling carnival to complete his task. With little time to waste, Johannes raises a motley crew from the dead and enlists his brother, Horst, a charismatic vampire to help him run his nefarious road show, resulting in mayhem at every turn.
My Review:
The sense of humor in this book is kind of like Lemony Snicket and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It uses irony and heavy heaps of sarcasm to tell its story. The sort of dry British humor that you rather love or don't get. The Necromancer definitely succeeded in being funny. The question is beyond that.
The plot was a bit slow. It, in and of itself, was interesting, but occasionally would go on tangents that didn't really go anywhere. An example of this was a ten-page-or-so segment from the poorly spelled perspective of a little kid at the Cabal Carnival. It was obviously in the book to make a joke, but that segment just didn't entertain me and was a struggle for me to get through.
That was my only main problem with this book: the jokes that didn't quite go over well.
The characters were interesting. I loved the dynamics they had with one another, especially Horst and Johannas's dynamic. I'll let you know that there was always a LOT of banter. That being said, all the characters other than Johannas and Horst were one dimensional. They didn't need to be complex, but they were lacking in a little realism.
Overall, it was a slow book, but I enjoyed its dry sense of humor. If you like that sort of thing, give it a shot! If not, this book probably isn't for you.
Will I read the next book, The Detective? I'm not sure yet. I probably won't, unless I get in the mood for this type of humor at some point.
Phrase:
You just need to fill out a few forms...
Happy Reading!
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