Books: The Humorous Horror Series You'll Want to Read

Witty, rude and weird are three words I would use to describe David Wong's books, especially the "John dies at the end" series. If you love a good horror book with a twisted sense of humour mixed in, then add these three to you TBR pile immediately. This series is bizarre and will make your skin crawl at times, but all the gore is nicely balanced out by the "fuck it" attitude that David Wong's character have. 

In each book, the problems gets progressively worse as it goes on and most of it could have been prevented if the main characters weren't absolutely useless - With this being said, you can't help but find yourself rooting for them as you get further into the story. When the story feels like it's just about to become something serious, Wong manages to twist into something absolutely hilarious that will have you wondering what else you actually expected from two main characters that have the mentalities of sixteen year olds. 

Unfortunately I didn't get to read this series in order, as I picked up "What the hell did I just read" one day as I was browsing books in Waterstones. The only reason I picked it up was because of the name, the reason I bought it was because of the blurb which you can read further down in this post. 

"John Dies at the End"

A drug that can destroy the fabric of reality itself falls into the the hands of two small-town dudes who are in no way equipped to deal with it. Will anyone make it out alive? The fact that this book has multiple sequels would suggest the answer is "yes".

"This Book is Full of Spiders" 

You will dismiss this as ridiculous fear mongering. Dismissing things as ridiculous fear mongering is, in fact, the first symptom of parasitic spider infection - the creature secretes a chemical into the brain to stimulate scepticism, in order to prevent you from seeking a cure. That's just as well, since the "cure" involves learning what a chain saw tastes like.

You can't feel the spider, because it controls your nerve endings. You can't see it, because it decides what you see. You won't even feel it when it breeds. And it will breed. So what happens when your family, friends, and neighbours get mind-controlling skull spiders? We're all about to find out.

Just stay calm, and remember that telling you about the spider situation is not the same as having caused it. I'm just the messenger. Even if I did sort of cause it. 

Either way, I won't hold it against you if you're upset. I know that's just the spider talking.

"What the Hell Did I Just Read"

It's the story "They" don t want you to read. Though, to be fair, "They" are probably right about this one. No, don't put the book back on the shelf it is now your duty to purchase it to prevent others from reading it. Yes, it works with ebooks, too; I don t have time to explain how.

While investigating a fairly straightforward case of a shape-shifting interdimensional child predator, Dave, John, and Amy realized there might actually be something weird going on. Together, they navigate a diabolically convoluted maze of illusions, lies, and their own incompetence in an attempt to uncover a terrible truth that they like you would be better off not knowing.

Your first impulse will be to think that a story this gruesome and, to be frank, stupid cannot possibly be true. That is precisely the reaction "They" are hoping for.

It didn't take me long after finishing "What the hell did I just read" to think exactly that, and then jump onto Amazon and order the other two from the series. I needed to know how they had ended up there and what the hell was going on. I can say, after reading the entire series, that I'm still not entirely sure... but In a good way. In a way that when you finish the book, you put it down and think "What the... I need more". 

My favourite one in the series has got to be "John Dies at the end". It was so well written and the story was unpredictable and snappy, I loved it. I did struggle a bit more to get through "This book is full of spiders", I'll be honest. Although I enjoyed it and I feel like it was an integral part of the series and made me laugh out loud in parts... There were also some parts of the book when I felt like it was dragging a bit. That combined with the very detailed description of the horrible spider monsters it featured, made it my least favourite one from the series. 

Have you read any of David Wong's books? What did you think?