Review: Straight Up Sickening
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 10 4, 2013
I have rarely read a book quite as offensive to my sensibilities as this one was. I usually review dialogue and character depth, and literary merit. While this book utterly fails to deliver any kind of quality literary experience, it takes the extra step to be as offensive as possible on so many levels. It is painfully obvious, especially after reading the afterword, that this book is a product of the author working through their own dark, deep-set emotional issues and probably should have never gone to press.I'm going to do this as chronologically as possible. These are the major issues that are not related to the literary value of this book:1. The violence in this book is singularly off-putting. A mother attempts to rape and eat her own son within the first few chapters. She is brutally beaten, with a description of minor dismemberment. A dog eats a rotting corpse. People dance in the entrails of other, dead people.2. Several characters are raped repeatedly for dramatic value. They react with dull surprise.3. It is implied heavily that the only reason Christians behave like humans as opposed to extremely violent meth-heads is because they have a christian soul. Otherwise they would be slobbering monsters. This is offensive to pretty much every religion everywhere when you consider that it also implies that only Christians go to a good afterlife.4. The Army is depicted as stupid, sexist, ineffectual and internally violent. Literally, the army is dangerous to civilians in this book. And for no reason other than to get the aforementioned characters raped, once again.5. This book implies that only virgins are worthy, and that only a virgin can save the world. People that had sex in this book, until the very end, die even more over-the-top violent deaths than the other characters. One appears to be ripped apart by bullets.If this still sounds fun, and I suppose it might, then it bears explaining that this book is horrible in terms of writing. The main character spends most of the book writing the book or writing un-original stories about someone named Cody that is something of a Jesus-figure who can travel in time to prevent terrible things. (Yep, reaaaaaly original there.) The other characters or similarly unoriginal and in some cases, nothing but butt-monkeys/woobies. Case in point - the main character's sister is killed by her evil fetus (this is how the book describes it) that eats its way through her stomach and is suggested to eat her dead body. The fetus being evil is what killed her. The main character's older brother's wife is raped until she dies.The dialogue is awful, stilted and unbelievable. No one talks like this, or even comes close.The plot drags, is obvious, has no real twists, no real turns and no believably either. These characters act like idiots repeatedly, constantly choosing to give into their angst to the detriment of their survival.Oh, and the main character is in love with a guy that seems like a complete jerk. Since this fuels the latter half of the plot and the main characters ultimate stupid decision, it causes the book to break.This book is NOT YA. It is NOT Satire. Buyer Beware.