Overall a fun read. I wished for a bit more at times and some things required a greater suspension of belief (even in the context of the hilarious plot!) than i could easily do. The breaking the fourth wall bits REALLY did not work for me. Still, enjoy it for what it is, and you'll have a blast with it! ( )

Disclaimer: An advance reader’s copy of this book in digital format was provided in exchange for review by the author, via Library Thing.

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This is an ARC. One can only hope that, before the final paper edition is set loose on an unsuspecting public, SOMEONE will do a final blue-pencil run-through of it (NOT another Spell-Check, fellas!) and clean up the plethora of homophone errors. I think the manuscript includes every foul/fowl, not/naught, cord/chord, shuddered/shuttered, spec/speck mixup possible along with a couple of plain old wrong-word-itis errors … “poised possessions” and an apparent mixup between deprivation and depravity that jar the reader right out of the story. This is just sloppy writing, people, and combined with Uytdewilligen’s odd stylistic choices and his tendency to break the fourth wall and lapse into a first-person folksy narration, it gives the whole thing the aura of having been written by a precocious but undisciplined adolescent.

And maybe while they’re at it, that blue-pencil-wielding Someone can whack out about 40% of this behemoth (490 pages in pdf) and turn it into the sleek little barracuda it was meant to be.

Because Uytdewilligen has a nugget of a story here, about hope and redemption and forgiveness and the power of love, but he can’t seem to get out of his own way long enough to tell it.

It all starts when a mysterious figure appears, via taxi, in a downtown Hollywood park, with a message to “Ditch the device. Accept the wine. Say yes to Victoria,” and other murky homilies. Is he an angel? A garden-variety nut-case? Or is he Charlie Fritz’ father, Bernie, returning ten years after he supposedly drowned, out for one last hurrah of boozing, philandering, and nose candy?

Charlie, whose career as an agent has just gone down the toilet, would definitely like to know, so much so that he breaks the old man out of the hospital where the cops have hauled him for observation, and the two go on the lam, hotly pursued by said police, a psychiatrist, and representatives of the Vatican. What follows is a madcap chase across Hollywood, as Bernie (now re-christened Clarence, after a famous screen angel) is immortalized on the internet via thousands of cell phone clips, and his fandom grows into a mania. Charlie, in attempting to monetize the whole thing, keeps getting them deeper and deeper into fine-tuning (i.e. falsifying) Clarence’s powers and booking him into public appearances which inevitably become unmitigated disasters.

The thing finally begins to come together along about midpoint, but the slapstick chase and frantic pacing continue interminably, with the last 150 or so pages spinning absolutely out of control. There is, finally, a resolution of most of the main plot threads, and the reader is left with the hope that Charlie will actually become a better person as a result of his experiences.

Uytdewilligen has some cogent things to say about the corrosive effects of the virtual world, the fleeting nature of fame, and the general nastiness of the “infotainment” business. There are some genuinely funny bits in this novel, but the reader doesn’t really have time to relish them before the next chaotic scene erupts. ( )

Disclaimer: I received this book as an Early Reviewer. No compensation was received aside from the chance to read this work.

This book is about a talent agent whose career took a serious downward spiral after a viral video showed him telling off a director at a movie premiere. His father, who has been dead for ten years, seems to have been resurrected as a messenger who can't stop repeating the same message. Seeing a chance to make some cash, son has plans to make his dad the next viral sensation.

This book leaned into the absurdist side of comedy, with a touch of magical thinking, but kept it grounded enough to tell an interesting story. Obviously, the story does have some religion in it, but it doesn't really get into the dogma aside from what drives the plot forward, and characters always asking "So, which is the one true religion? It's X, isn't it?".

Recommended for: those who enjoy Monty Python, Terry Pratchett's Pyramids, and humor in general. ( )