Scan barcode
kosmond's review
1.0
***Original review posted here
Okay, so let me start this by saying I could not finish this book. And I usually finish books. Once I start, I stick through it to make a fair judgement call on the whole book. I just could not make it to the end of The War Against The Assholes.
The premise was different but fun. Fantasy and true crime? Not usually my genre of choice, but let's be honest, the title is enough to want to dive right into this one. Who wouldn't want to wage a war against the assholes out there? Am I right? So I figure the book would be fun, and witty and something new and different. But what I got was confusing, strange and yes, something new and different but not the new and different I wanted.
So unfortunately, I'm the asshole here by saying this book was not worth my time. I could have used the time to finish rereading the Twilight series (I'm on Eclipse!). Maybe this book will be for someone else, but they won't be hearing about it from me.
But let's take the time to acknowledge the publisher of The War Against The Assholes. SAGA Press, a new and exciting imprint of Simon & Schuster. Good things look like they'll come out of there, I'm looking forward to seeing what they have to offer in the near future!
Happy Reading!
Okay, so let me start this by saying I could not finish this book. And I usually finish books. Once I start, I stick through it to make a fair judgement call on the whole book. I just could not make it to the end of The War Against The Assholes.
The premise was different but fun. Fantasy and true crime? Not usually my genre of choice, but let's be honest, the title is enough to want to dive right into this one. Who wouldn't want to wage a war against the assholes out there? Am I right? So I figure the book would be fun, and witty and something new and different. But what I got was confusing, strange and yes, something new and different but not the new and different I wanted.
So unfortunately, I'm the asshole here by saying this book was not worth my time. I could have used the time to finish rereading the Twilight series (I'm on Eclipse!). Maybe this book will be for someone else, but they won't be hearing about it from me.
But let's take the time to acknowledge the publisher of The War Against The Assholes. SAGA Press, a new and exciting imprint of Simon & Schuster. Good things look like they'll come out of there, I'm looking forward to seeing what they have to offer in the near future!
Happy Reading!
zapkode's review against another edition
1.0
{My Thoughts} – I have read about halfway through this book and am still having problems with the structure in which it is written. I don’t know how to get past all the short snipped sentences. I don’t know how to get use to the lack of appropriate punctuation and the fact that the book is simply lacking in other ways I just cannot seem to fathom at this point.
Based on what I have read is that Mike is the main character and he gets into a scuffle that leaves one of the schools bully’s rather beaten up because he managed to catch him off guard. Once he is through beating this guy up he encounters the schools outsider Hob. Hob gives him a little green book and tells him to read it but not out in the open. As he reads the book he starts to try and understand the content within its pages.
It appears to be a book about how to perform magic tricks and deliver them flawlessly. However, I haven’t really gathered much more from what I have read because the sentence structure and the means in which it is written makes me want to put the book down and never look at it again. I am sure that others may enjoy this book, just the way it is, but it isn’t my kind of book and I know that one may not always enjoy each book they read, but this book makes me want to stuff it away.
I was really hoping this book would be more in depth as to how to deal with people that aren’t so kind and in a logical manner dish out some sort of advice. However, because I am having issues reading it I don’t think I will ever fully know what the book is about and at this point I am okay with that. There are very few books that I have received for review that I haven’t been able to fully engage in and this is one of them. I do wish the author nothing but success in the future and I hope that others that rad this book may find some appeal in the style, it just isn’t a written style that is meant for me.
Based on what I have read is that Mike is the main character and he gets into a scuffle that leaves one of the schools bully’s rather beaten up because he managed to catch him off guard. Once he is through beating this guy up he encounters the schools outsider Hob. Hob gives him a little green book and tells him to read it but not out in the open. As he reads the book he starts to try and understand the content within its pages.
It appears to be a book about how to perform magic tricks and deliver them flawlessly. However, I haven’t really gathered much more from what I have read because the sentence structure and the means in which it is written makes me want to put the book down and never look at it again. I am sure that others may enjoy this book, just the way it is, but it isn’t my kind of book and I know that one may not always enjoy each book they read, but this book makes me want to stuff it away.
I was really hoping this book would be more in depth as to how to deal with people that aren’t so kind and in a logical manner dish out some sort of advice. However, because I am having issues reading it I don’t think I will ever fully know what the book is about and at this point I am okay with that. There are very few books that I have received for review that I haven’t been able to fully engage in and this is one of them. I do wish the author nothing but success in the future and I hope that others that rad this book may find some appeal in the style, it just isn’t a written style that is meant for me.
stlorca's review against another edition
2.0
Some books are magical, sweeping the reader into a fantastic universe of their own making.
At the other end of the scale is Sam Munson's The War Against the Assholes. Like Uprooted, it's the story of a teen thrust into the midst of a magical conflict; unlike Novik, Munson's writing style is, er, an acquired taste. A teenage boy, Mike Wood, is picked by a secret society of magicians to fight the good fight against the IlluminatiAssholes (you know, the cabal the orchestrates world events).
I ran out of patience with it about halfway through the book--seriously, does Munson's religion forbid paragraph breaks or something? Why present entire conversations in one text-dense page after another? Toss in his habit of never using a question mark and flipping back and forth between flashbacks and the present day without a break and it starts to look like someone dropped a manuscript and piled the pages together without looking at the page numbers (or, indeed, knowing what a "book" was). Reading should be enjoyable, not an IQ test.
At the other end of the scale is Sam Munson's The War Against the Assholes. Like Uprooted, it's the story of a teen thrust into the midst of a magical conflict; unlike Novik, Munson's writing style is, er, an acquired taste. A teenage boy, Mike Wood, is picked by a secret society of magicians to fight the good fight against the IlluminatiAssholes (you know, the cabal the orchestrates world events).
I ran out of patience with it about halfway through the book--seriously, does Munson's religion forbid paragraph breaks or something? Why present entire conversations in one text-dense page after another? Toss in his habit of never using a question mark and flipping back and forth between flashbacks and the present day without a break and it starts to look like someone dropped a manuscript and piled the pages together without looking at the page numbers (or, indeed, knowing what a "book" was). Reading should be enjoyable, not an IQ test.
mrsjenniferwheeler's review against another edition
3.0
What the heck did I just read??? This book was really, REALLY strange to say the least. I’m honestly unsure whether I even understood the plot line or not. Having said that, the writing is intriguing - once you get past the “stream-of-consciousness” style. I did kind of enjoy it, even though it left me feeling confused & muddle-headed. I kept falling asleep while trying my darnedest to pay attention to what was going on - which is why it took me so long to finish.
rosseroo's review
1.0
The catchy title and purported premise ("Contemporary fantasy meets true crime when schools of ancient sorcery go up against the art of the long con in this stunningly entertaining debut fantasy novel.") reeled me in, but at the end of it all, I felt like the victim of a 280-page-long con.
High school junior (senior?) Mike plays football at a bland New York Catholic high school. One day, a weedy classmate introduces him to a book of magic tricks as the hook to bring him into his tiny clique of magic-using weirdos (one of whom is the requisite hot chick named Alabama -- possibly in homage to the character from the film True Romance?). Pretty much everything beyond this opening part is choppy and confusing.
It seems that Mike's group is in some long-standing "war" against the titular rivals, but the whys and wherefores never really get clear. Mike's group includes a Holocaust survivor, so presumably they're the goodies, but I could never work out what made the baddies bad. I think maybe the concept is a riff on Catcher in the Rye (which does get explicitly referred to), and the baddies are the phonies?
Oh yeah, and the writer made a distinctive choice in writing in super-short sentences, which didn't really add anything for me and just felt like an attempt at style for the sake of style. Throw in the perpetually horny and violence-prone protagonist, the fantasy sex-interest, the completely muddled stakes, and the abrupt ending, and this thing is a dud.
High school junior (senior?) Mike plays football at a bland New York Catholic high school. One day, a weedy classmate introduces him to a book of magic tricks as the hook to bring him into his tiny clique of magic-using weirdos (one of whom is the requisite hot chick named Alabama -- possibly in homage to the character from the film True Romance?). Pretty much everything beyond this opening part is choppy and confusing.
It seems that Mike's group is in some long-standing "war" against the titular rivals, but the whys and wherefores never really get clear. Mike's group includes a Holocaust survivor, so presumably they're the goodies, but I could never work out what made the baddies bad. I think maybe the concept is a riff on Catcher in the Rye (which does get explicitly referred to), and the baddies are the phonies?
Oh yeah, and the writer made a distinctive choice in writing in super-short sentences, which didn't really add anything for me and just felt like an attempt at style for the sake of style. Throw in the perpetually horny and violence-prone protagonist, the fantasy sex-interest, the completely muddled stakes, and the abrupt ending, and this thing is a dud.
ambiiumm's review
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I loved this book! I know some people found the writing style confusing, but I think that it made the story very fast paced. The characters were interesting, and the story was gripping. I hope there's more to come!