The Stupidest Angel

I think I’ve developed a sudden love/hate relationship with Christopher Moore.

My father sent me a copy of The Stupidest Angel as part of my birthday gift, and I started to read it the day it arrived.  After the first couple of pages I worried there would be a problem, as I thought the individual sentences in the book were hilarious, but found the chapters as a whole were unbearably frenetic.  The first two nights I picked it up to read I ended up shutting it after only a few pages out of sheer mental exhaustion, and I had to go back and re-read the initial pages for reminders of all the wild and wacky characters.  I think that was the problem I had when I started reading—there was so much wackiness and facetiousness and sarcasm and parody that my head felt as if I was watching an IMAX film about rollercoasters after downing a gallon of gin.  For me, The Stupidest Angel was not so much a light and fun read as it was a reading challenge.

Now the good news.  About halfway through the book, I started to really like it.  The characters were fleshed out, and instead of just being wacky and cartoonish, they had depth and real personalities.  The craziness of the plot also settled down into a nice rhythm that was comfortable and intriguing.  By the time I finished reading I wanted to know more about the characters, and have put a couple more Christopher Moore books on my wishlist so I can find out the origins of Roberto the Fruit Bat, for example.  I’d become so used to Moore’s style of writing that when I started reading Stiff by Mary Roach, it was a bit of a let-down.  It was like eating a big bag of spicy jalapeno potato chips, and then being given a Ritz cracker.  There’s nothing wrong with a Ritz cracker—they taste great and I love them—but it’s not a wild ride like a jalapeno chip.  I can’t eat (or read) jalapeno chips every day, but I think they’ll make a great occasional literary snack.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 01/18 at 08:59 PM

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