My Thoughts:From Booklist
Doyle's love of teen movies was giddily evident in I Love You, Beth Cooper (2007). But it seems there's another genre he loves even more: the sci-fi shockers of the 1950s and '60s. This frenetic satire combines flying saucers, hideous mutants, and all other manner of drive-in fare with the high-school ennui of something like Rebel without a Cause. It has been 20 years since the aliens landed in 1951, and 17-year-old J!m (don't bother trying to pronounce it) is, aside from his blue skin and brain-enlarged cranium, your quintessential teen loner. With his pal Johnny, an atomic ape, and their tagalong buddy Jelly, a pile of gelatinous goo, they outsmart human bullies and try to make out with chicks. (Though the chicks are understandably unnerved by interspecies sex-ed films—if you thought getting pregnant was bad, try getting eggs laid in your brain.) Every sentence careens with energy, wisecracks, and winks at everything from triffids to Altair IV. Shades of the Red scare and allegories about puberty abound, too, but thankfully, gooey atomic mayhem wins the day. --Daniel Kraus
I loved, loved, loved and adored Larry Doyle's I Love You, Beth Cooper. It made me laugh and cringe, and it was all my favorite parts of 80's movies rolled into novel form. So I was excited to see Go, Mutants!, and was quick to download it onto my Kindle. Unlike Beth Cooper though, Go, Mutants! is not as page turn worthy at Doyle's first book.
Part of the fault lies in me, Go, Mutants! is a much better read if you read it from cover to cover and don't cheat on it with other books or put it away for several months. There's a lot of sci-fi terms made up by Doyle, which really bogs down the flow of the story for me. At the heart of Mutants is simple teenage love story we can all relate to. J!m is an awkward teen going through the grossness of puberty, in love with his friend Marie, but afraid to tell her how he feels. And just like Ron screwed things up with Hermione at the Yule Ball, J!m misses his opportunity to ask Marie to the school dance despite the fact that she gave him hints big enough to be seen from space.
Once I got into the book the writing and sci-fi-iness of it all got easier to read, and by the end I was quite invested in the characters. I loved Johnny- how cool would it be to have a blue ape boy as you best friend, capable of not only going all King Kong on your enemy's hiney, but also able to belt out great music? Like in I Love You, Beth Cooper, which paid homage to every John Hughes movie ever made, Go, Mutants! is a walk down the 1950's memory lane, although history is a bit altered by aliens influence. Instead of Elvis Presley, there's the Presley Brothers, Kennedy is still alive, and all the cool advances the Jetson's cartoon promised us as kids is realized.
Go, Mutants! gets a Midnight Book Rating of 11pm, but I think it may rise to a midnight read if I ever re-read it.
I'm really not into sci-fi, so I don't know if this would keep my attention. It was a good review though. I think I may try I Love You Beth Cooper instead!
ReplyDeleteI loved I Love You Beth Cooper as well, and I did like Go Mutants. However, one of the things I mentioned at my book club when we discussed this book was that I am really intrigued to see what kind of novel Doyle can produce when he isn't trying to pay homage to something else. There were several moments in ILYBC and a few in Go Mutants that displayed his ability to be witty and clever with his words so I really can't wait for him to write a novel that is just him.
ReplyDeleteNot that teen movies and sci-fi isn't (or couldn't really be) him, but... ah, you know what I mean.
Everyone should read I Love You, Beth Cooper... at least everyone that loves 80's movies.
ReplyDeleteBittner, I am interested to see what Doyle will come up with next. I'm sure it'll be interesting! I wouldn't mind if he went back to the 80's movie as a novel formula though, there's just not enough books like that out there.