Review: More Village Idiot Reviews
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 26, 2014
More Village Idiot Reviews is the fourth book in the Idiot Reviews series, but is the direct sequel to The Village Idiot Reviews.  This book sees the return of many of the characters that made the first Idiot Review book entertaining:  Father Frederick, the local clergyman who has a problem with drinking and driving; Denny, a youthful troublemaker who is now trying to right his life; Brian, the village idiot who is now joined by his cousin Jeff who was the focal character in the Office Idiot Reviews; and Ethel, the local packrat.  Other village residents also take center stage with their foolishness such as Monty, a delusional "royal," and Chopper, his gamekeeper.The most notable aspect of this book, as compared to the others, is that the humor works a bit better than the first three books of the Idiot Reviews series.  While the humor elsewhere in the series has often been predominantly juvenile, there were a few more instances of clever humor in this book that worked well enough to evoke a couple of laughs.  A further positive is that the original set of characters stand out -- one can almost immediately remember the various cast, their characteristics, their style of "writing" for the reviews, and their motives (which is something that hasn't always rang true in the Idiot and Government Idiot Reviews).That said, the primary area where this book falls a bit short of the original is that some of the storylines don't quite mesh together as well.  The original drew together the stories of Frederick, Denny, Brian, Ethel, etc. because each character had some impact with another one and their stories overlapped to provide a complete picture.  In this book, there's a lot of focus on Frederick and Brian, but little overlap between the two (which occurred via Denny in the first book).  Overall, the stories of the primary characters are more distinct, making the book seem more like a general collection of short stories set in the same village rather than an actual cohesive story that merges together.Overall, an interesting read with improved humor which maintains the creative format of the Idiot Reviews series.