Customer Reviews

Going Loco: A Comedy of Terrors - A Story From The Lynne Truss Omnibus

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After reading her thoroughly enjoyable "Eats, Shoots & Leaves," I came across this wonderfully funny bit of fiction from the mind of Lynne Truss. What a great -- and completely different -- follow up to her grammar rant.

This is a comic novel about many, many things. There are several interrelated plots going on all at once. There is too much to summarize, but everything is constructed around the theme of the doppleganger. There are many doubles in this book--people who look alike, people who take on one another's identity, people who complement and supplement each other in various ways--and all the subplots look at the double from a different angle.

The humor of this novel is based around absurd characters and bizarre plot twists. However, no matter how ridiculous things get, Truss's characters remain in the moment and true to their natures. Because of this, the story did not strain my suspension of disbelief. To the end I felt invested in the characters. This is what makes the jokes funny and keeps the plot twists interesting.

What makes this book truly memorable is that this tangle of plot twists is all constructed around a theme. Thus, the surprises, while still unexpected, never seem arbitrary. Instead, they all seem perfectly natural, exactly as they should be. Everything seems part of a unified whole, and each twist seems to reveal more of it.

If you like plot twists this is a good book for you...I don't think it will ever be a classic but it's an entertaining read.