Featured Book Friday! A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore Part 2

Okay, at first, I thought the whole “Beta Male” thing at the beginning of the book was just a one off thing. But I swear, the author references the “Beta Male” thing every chapter, or at least, every other chapter. It’s getting annoying. I feel like the author read a pop psychology article about alpha and beta males and he was like, “I need to center my whole book around this!” There is even a “Are you a beta male?” quiz at the back of the book. All it’s missing is the quiz, “Are you a cuck, too?”  I swear, I was waiting for it. At first, I just thought it was a way to describe Charlie. But instead of giving him an actual character, he feels like a caricature. All I know about Charlie is that he’s a beta male and tries to be funny.

Every time the author writes “Beta Male,” all I can think of is Jesse Lee Peterson saying, “BETA!” If you don’t know who Jesse Lee Peterson is, check out his YouTube Channel. They’re amazing, “AMAZING!”

The characters are very vivid and full of life. I feel like I would know them instantly if I saw them in the street. The author does a really good job of fleshing out characters. And their dialogue lets them come to life. If I could write dialogue only half as good as the author, then I would be happy with that. 

I guess the main criticism that I have with this book is that it wasn’t exactly what I expected. At first, I thought that the main character Charlie was becoming Death, but not really at all. He helps soul vessels find their right souls to level up. Except that is not even really in the book. There is only four times (I think) in the whole book where we readers journey with him as he collects the soul vessels. There are so many side stories that I wasn’t sure what the true plot was until the very end of the book. That was more of a twist than the contrived twist about the Luminatus. Yes, the whole Forces of Darkness thing was there in the book, but it took such a backseat in the story that I wasn’t sure if anything would even come of it. 

I think some of this criticism is a me-problem. That’s why I have a hard time reading books anymore. I get frustrated about what I personally want the book to be about or what I thought it would be, so when it doesn’t do those things, I get annoyed. The truth is I would have stopped reading this book if it wasn’t for the fact that I was writing this review. I had to push myself to finish this book this week. I feel bad to say that because I genuinely thought it was funny at first. But as it went on, I wanted a story as well as being amusing. I guess I thought that it would be more plot-driven and instead, it felt more like a “slice of life” story. It’s not a bad thing, but I just wasn’t expecting that.

MILD SPOILER:

Also, the twist at the end wasn’t really a twist because the author basically tells you who the Luminatus (the one who will defeat the Forces of Darkness) really is if you are paying attention. I’m not saying I’m smart; it’s just that it wasn’t hard to figure out by the clues. It didn’t help that Charlie just randomly decided that he was the Luminatus without any real evidence of it. I mean, okay, he was there when people died, which with a Death Merchant isn’t always the case, but it felt forced to just create a twist at the end. I’m trying not to spoil the twist, so I won’t go into any more detail with this. Let’s just say that the cover of the book ruins it.

/END MILD SPOILER