John Dies at the End

“Amateurish” is a tricky word. Technically it just means stuff that's not created by professionals, but I've never seen it used to just mean that - it's always used as a pejorative, implying that stuff created by amateurs is inherently inferior to stuff created by professionals. It's a little sad, when you think about it, that stuff people create just for the love of it is reflexively valued as less than stuff people get paid to make.

So I'm not going to call this an amateurish novel. It's not written in a “professional” way - the story kind of goes all over the place, the narrative voice and the sense of humour that runs through it are inconsistent at times, and it has an attitude that is snide and flippant towards its audience. And because of those things, it's a great, fun read.

Plus, you've got to love a novel that spoils itself in the title.