“Everything goes away, Jack Sawyer, like the moon. Everything comes back, like the moon.”
It may seem odd to spend over 600 pages on a book that was only three stars (maybe closer to a 3.5), but to be honest, this was a solid 4-star book until the last quarter or so. Overall, this was a good nighttime read: just a fantasy adventure of 12-year-old Jack Sawyer crossing the United States to get to the mysterious Talisman in order to save his mother. While there were monsters and horrors along the way, The Talisman was more adventure, and I guess I had expected an equal amount of each.
The text could feel a bit disjointed at times, likely due to the fact the there were two authors who wrote this (having read some Stephen King before, this didn’t really feel 100% like him). But honestly, you could read much worse, and this book does not deter me from wanting to read the sequel, Black House. Although I think my next few King books will be more focused on horror. Maybe Misery...
Audible gave me a free audiobook, so I wanted to choose something that was not only interesting but had a narrator I would enjoy – so when I saw that H. Jon Benjamin had narrated his own memoir, I knew I had to listen to it. I’m a huge fan of Bob’s Burgers, and I've enjoyed some of his other works (though I never got into Archer), so I figured it would be nice to see how he came into his iconic TV roles.
What I got instead was a hilarious collection of anecdotes and stories from his childhood and teenage years all the way through to his current career. If you are looking for behind-the-scenes information on Bob’s Burgers or Archer, he barely gets into them in the last two chapters of the book. He instead spends time discussing his upbringing, his family, and his failed attempts at writing and starring in TV shows. His stories are insane, especially taken out of context:
“You know that feeling when you realize you have to spend an entire summer with a convicted felon? That’s how I felt.”
This book is downright comical, and his comedic ‘lists’ at the end of certain chapters do satisfy that Bob’s Burger’s-esque pun craving. Anyone remotely interested in his life will get something out of this (especially when he’s the one narrating, so I again highly recommend the audiobook version).
