The Bad Weather Friend (book review)

Warning: not spoilers, but kinda-sorta hints will reveal themselves in this review.

Ok, this isn’t a perfect book. You won’t walk away from it as a changed person, you won’t fall in love with any of the characters, and you won’t cry, or scream in horror, or anything like that.

But it is fun.

It’s campy, satirical, creative, and entertaining in the way that merry-go-rounds and waffle cones are fun. Dean Koontz seems better known for suspense, sci-fi, supernatural works, and this has some of that sort of thing. But it’s kinda weird, too.

Weird things:

1) He talks to you. Yeah, you. Koontz has a dozen or so sections in (paragraphs where he just talks straight to you like this.) The only book I can remember doing this was The Princess Bride by S. Morgenstern (aka William Goldman). Goldman did this very well. Koontz does it less well. It’s cute, but kinda bothered me. Still, it fit in with the goofy style of this book, so there’s that.

2) Koontz plays fast and loose with the backstory, jumping to and fro, pushing you into the main character’s head during his forming years, then back into the main storyline. I found it a bit unsettling, but then I hate it when stories bounce back and forth like that. Always have. Movies, too - can’t stand it. Give me a prologue with some character development from yesteryear, if you must, then let’s get on with the show. Koontz didn’t do that.

But it is quite fun.

Aliens, secret societies, and one really, really nice guy make this book kind of a riot. It’s not perfect. I wouldn’t even say that it’s great, or really good.

But seriously, you will have fun. That's gotta be worth four stars.