This Book is Full of Spiders by David Wong

Late last year I read an odd horror/comedy called John Dies at the End by David Wong. I loved the book. It was actually one of my favourite reads form 2012. The reason I picked up John Dies at the End was because of This Book is Full of Spiders.

I have arachnophobia, so any book with a title like that will naturally catch my attention. The book isn't really full of spiders. The spiders it talks about are spiderlike, but they're not actually spiders. A more apt title would have been This Book is Full of Zombies, but the zombies in the book aren't actually zombies either, so maybe not. Making sense? I thought not, and that's pretty much how David Wong writes.

His first book was largely an accident and while it hung together remarkably well you could see that at times. This one was written far more on purpose and it's apparent that the author learned from the experience of publishing John Dies at the End.

This Book is Full of Spiders follows a far more structured plot line than John Dies at the End, and I think it's a better book for that. It does have the same three strand idea that characterised John Dies at the End, though. David is the narrator and his parts are in first person. The other main characters are David's best friend John and David's girlfriend Amy. There is even one memorable chapter told from the point of view of Molly the dog.

This Book is Full of Spiders is rather like The Walking Dead if it were played for laughs. For that reason although I know David doesn't look anything like Steven Yeun (Glenn from The Walking Dead), but I kept seeing him that way (mind you I did that with John Dies in the End, too).

John and David both display the strangely heroic qualities that they possess. They are two of the most unlikely heroes you could ever encounter. Despite that this book is Amy's. Amy is also an unlikely hero. She's small and softly spoken, she's physically disabled, but she is smart and in This Book is Full of Spiders she kicks arse!

I really enjoyed it and it is a more than worthy successor to John Dies at the End. I hope the film version of John Dies at the End is a success, because I can't wait to see how they'll film This Book is Full of Spiders.

An excellent book that anyone who likes zombies (sort of) and laughs should seriously think about buying.