Review--Happy Hour of the Damned

THE THING NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT DYING IS JUST HOW MUCH FUN IT CAN BE.

Alive, ad exec Amanda Feral worked hard to wring enjoyment out of her days. Now that she's a zombie, it's a different story. Turns out, Seattle is home to glamorous undead of every description, and Amanda--stylish and impeccably groomed even in the afterlife--is swigging cocktails and living large (so to speak) among its elite. But there are downsides. Not being able to stomach anything except alcohol and human flesh, for instance. And the fact that someone is targeting Seattle's otherworldly inhabitants for their own sinister reasons.

Preying on the undead is seriously uncool. The only option for Amanda and her zombie BFF Wendy and gorgeous gay pal Gil to unearth the culprit among the legions of Seattle's bloodsuckers, shapeshifters, reapers, succubi, and demons--before they all meet a fate a lot worse than death...

Okay, so I've been hearing a LOT about the Amanda Feral series by Mark Henry and the Save Amanda campaign. The series is in danger of ending, possibly too soon. A lot of authors I read had a lot of good things to say about Mark's book and since I had to wait to get First Drop of Crimson, I found myself with nothing to read and decided to give Happy Hour of the Damned a try.

It was...interesting. It wasn't horrible, because I did hear some bad reviews about this. Then again it was on Amazon, so anyone can speak freely there. Plus that review wasn't as concrete, but they still pointed out things that bugged them. For instance the use of footnotes, there are in fact footnotes in this book, throughout the book. I found them amusing actually, Amanda is the narrator of this story and she makes it known that she is narrating--this isn't a narration as things tend to happen, she is telling a story that happened. So it was interesting on that level.

There are also some colorful sentences, where they don't make too much sense, but they are not supposed to. It's mostly just commenting in colorful ways. There are some vulgar moments as well, and gore, lots of violence and more gore--but that didn't bother me. Amanda/Mark Henry makes it funny. This is a sort of comedic book as well, Amanda says almost exactly what you would think, if something bad happens, she doesn't freak, she curses. So yeah, that was funny.

Moving onto the actual storyline and characters, I found them all to be well-developed. We start in the present and then move back a few months to when Amanda is changed into a zombie--that part was a little confusing, because for awhile we're in the five months ago, and then at some point we jump back to the present and Amanda/Mark Henry makes this clear, but yet there was a line that confused me since we were in the present. Amanda makes a reference to something that happened 3 weeks ago, her transformation to a zombie, yet we were supposed to be in present time and the flashback started at 5 months earlier. So yeah, that little bit confused me, but I took it to not be extremely important, she just wanted the guy she was talking to, to remember who she was.

Amanda as I said is very funny, she says what you're thinking and she's relate-able minus the zombie bit. It was a little uneasy to read about her and Wendy, her gal pal BFF eating people, but since it happens quite frequently, you get over it. But what was sad is that they choose homeless people or people who won't be missed, I find that little aspect sad.

Wendy and Gil are also pretty funny, Gil is like the stereotypical gay man/vampire. The jibs they trade with one another are also funny.

The mystery part of the story is a long and has a total twist. There is also a problem within the supernatural community involving a certain "race"--ie monster type. That part gets a little confusing because suddenly we deter from Amanda's main mystery to something else entirely.

The end comments, Amanda's authorial acknowledgments were pretty entertaining as well, because it reminds you, once again if the footnotes weren't enough of a clue, that this is Amanda's story/novel rather than Mark's.

Overall the book was, as I said, interesting. Interesting meaning to just be interesting. It wasn't horrible, yet some parts were a little hard to read. I cannot decide if I want to read the next one, Road Trip of the Living Dead or not. If I get to a slow point in my reading without any new reads, I might consider it. It was definitely something different to read.

Looking for a different kind of zombie book? Amanda Feral is one for you then!