What The Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror is the third in David Wong’s trilogy following the exploits of David Wong, his girlfriend Amy and his sidekick John—the first book was John Dies At The End and the second This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don’t Touch It. David Wong is the head editor of Cracked.com, the comedy website, and the comedic voice that made Cracked such a success is the foundation to all three books.
I would describe the plot of WTHDIJR but I’m not sure that I can. And honestly, that’s kind of the point. Or the point is that the plot has no point? The book does generally follow the story of David, Amy and John as they investigate a case involving a missing child. There is also a bat-mantis monster that’s wreaking havoc throughout town, and a mystery quasi-government secret organization that seems to be also investigating the missing child case but also seems to have a vendetta against David. There are a ton of jokes about butts, which sounds like a criticism that the book is childish, but it’s all genuinely funny. I laughed out loud to this book multiple times.
I wouldn’t read this novel without first reading John Dies At The End and This Book Is Full Of Spiders. And how much you enjoy the humor in those books will definitely indicate if you would like the humor in this one—it’s the same mix of irreverence, ridiculousness and poop jokes alongside extrapolating the more ridiculous facts about life and the way the world works that the past books have.
I will say that this book, more than my memory serves of the past two, can get a little bit preachy. I don’t mean that Wong starts going on about politics or anything like that (although our current political climate is definitely alluded to multiple times), but his character (and some others) have multiple lengthy rants about random facts that you get the sense that Wong just thinks are cool and wants to show off how cool he is for knowing. He also included a subplot about depression and it just really didn’t fit with the rest of the book because it’s too serious, and it’s clear that he’s trying to educate people about depression and I don’t know. I don’t really want to be seriously educated about depression in a book that also includes a section where one of the characters shoots a giant pulsating larvae monster with sulfur-infused dildos. You know?
Ahhh, I’m so jealous! I put this on my Christmas list, so I haven’t read it yet. I enjoyed John Dies at the End and looooved Spiders, so I’m looking forward to this. Sounds like it’s a little uneven – I will temper my expectations accordingly.