Dave Turner

I found this book a bit boring and just a tad too silly. I loved the first book in the series, but felt that this one lacked much of the humour that the first book had. I also found Dave's chapters in this just too different from the first book, almost like the author was trying too hard to include various supernatural elements. This book left me feeling that the author hadn't fully planned a sequel to the first book, and had to focus too much on a storyline when he began writing this one, hence the lack of wit and humour that I expected.

With that said however, I have downloaded the third book and am eager to start into it! I'm hoping that it is more like the first in the series.… (meer)

This is a very short book (less than a hundred pages) and is the first in what is currently a 5 book book long series.

The books protagonist is a man named Dave Marwood. Dave is a fairly predictable character, he works in an office in London, fancies his co-worker Melanie, and shares his apartment with a conspiracy theory obsessed, unemployed man named Gary. Nothing exciting or unusual seems to happen in his life, until Halloween night.

He goes out to celebrate Halloween with a friend when he runs into a drunk Melanie. He takes this opportunity to speak to her and hopefully work up the courage to ask her on a date. All is going well until Melanie drunkenly stumbles out in front of an oncoming vehicle. Dave pushes her out of the way to save her life, but he gets hit by the car and killed instead.

This is where we are introduced to the first of the Four Horsemen, Death. He loves tea and biscuits, believes that chocolate Hobnobs are humans best invention, and seems to be very very bad at his job. He grants Dave a second chance at life, and gives him his business card with the address of his office printed on it.

When Dave wakes up in hospital he tries to convince himself that it was all a dream, but as the days pass by it becomes increasingly obvious that was not the case.

I was originally expecting this to be a poor copy of Sir Terry Pratchett's work, but I was very wrong. This book may draw done influence from Discworld, but it definitely stands out on its own. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read something silly and quite humerus, this is the only book to have ever made me laugh out loud! This was the first book I have read by Dave Turner but I have already dived into the second book in the series and will definitely read more of his work in the future.… (meer)

Dave Marwood is a great character. For a lot of people doing nothing is the easiest way to live, but Dave works hard at his apathy. We see in the novel a character that is willing to think of others before himself even in the most extreme situations. He is a guy who is living and feeling despite his efforts to the contrary. Dave has seen ghosts since he was a small child, and he seems comfortable and at peace with them—they seem rather stubbornly married to their earthly existence contrary to what other popular fiction might tell us. Dave is ideally situated to fill the job that Death proposes to him.

Death is an interesting guy. The way that Turner layers this immortal character is fascinating. Death is petulant. The human body is simply a meat puppet for the soul. They are silly and useless and yet he seems to care about making Dave understand his point of view. He needs that contact. Death is horribly busy but lives in time as though the eras are rooms in a house so that his hectic pace never ends. Death has had to distance himself from his friends and their ill-advised choices (Famine once took a wife!) so that he is only about work and chocolate biscuits. He is not infallible. As Turner says early in the novel, “Some days you are Godzilla. Other days you are Tokyo” (Kindle Location 63).

Mostly in How To Be Dead I loved the layering of truths and interlacing of humor. The style of writing speaks to Turner’s writing experience in the smooth flow and easy spirit of the characters. The ghost that Dave meets on the subway is quite happy to continue riding the train. He says that it makes him feels as though he’s alive which gives this spirit a contentment that is unique to the genre. That Dave isn’t the guy to push a subject to suit himself leaves this reader eagerly anticipating where this series will go next.… (meer)