Maggie's Grave

A champion read, och aye the noo!

I am surprisingly impressed my Maggie's Grave and didn't expect it to be anywhere near as enjoyable. It's even better than The Haar with all its flaws and idiosyncrasies.

David Sodergren uses strong language that's off-putting, throwaway and scummy at first, but as you get used to his down to earth and overtly teenage writing style, it's the humor that elevates this book above standard splatterpunk fare.

Sodergren manages to hold it all together in a tale that's really well planned and thought out.

With a book as extreme and silly as this, there are of course loopholes and implausibilities, those moments of head shaking and no-no-no-no utterances, but every time that happens there is enough togetherness and careful planning to keep things on track.

I'm reminded of Grady Hendrix, but what I don't sometimes like about Grady is his mix of summer camp horror with daft implausibilities, whereas Sodergren hits hard but keeps things within plausible boundaries, especially considering the amount of silliness involved. Best of all, Maggie's Grave is filled with multiple irreverent, shocking and laugh out loud moments.

"Once you’ve seen a witch tear a man inside out from his arsehole, you’ve seen it all."

What a great job! A really well constructed book that had me glued to the pages for gratuitous depravity one minute, then guffawing the next, which is a really difficult combination to get right.

It's hard to say more without giving away spoilers, but one scene takes the base elements of Rosemary's Baby and turns that on its head with madcap humor and excessive gore:

"Stimulants? A mix CD? It sounded like they were teenagers on a weekend trip to Magaluf."

A book as madcap as this is rarely going to get 5 stars because that's reserved for truly exceptional novels that shake my world or develop that way over the years, but a very high 4 star rating nonetheless.

I had so much fun! Thanks for lightening up my world and emphasizing life as a giant crap shoot.

This is my second David Sodergren novel, I've got Rotten Tommy to come, and I've just bought The Forgotten Island to read after, maybe before, that, I'm such a fan.