Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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> Genre: Fiction > So much fun. So fucked up. Can I say that?

So much fun. So fucked up. Can I say that?

The Mad and the Bad by Jean-Patrick Manchette

January 5, 2021 by chatelaine 3 Comments

First of all I have to cop to cheating on this. Kind of. The beginning of this review is maybe 2 years old, however, I just reread the book! So…recycling and expanding. It’s fine! la la la just never you mind

I READ THIS IN ONE SITTING. It’s funny, it’s dark, it’s cartoonish, it’s Tarantinoesque, it’s either brilliant social/political/economic/mental health commentary or the rantings of a crazy person. Or both. I loved it.

The friend who gave it to me said, “Yeah, he is pretty fun. It’s like a kick ass movie…but with some French lefty politics swirling around in the background.” Yes. All that and more!

The quick spoiler-free synopsis: wealthy guy hires woman directly from an asylum to care for his orphaned nephew. Then he hires an assassin with major ulcer problems to kill both of them. It’s almost needless to say, but it doesn’t go well, and hilarity ensues…but seriously it kind of does. The violence is ludicrous but is SO ludicrous that it somehow wasn’t disturbing and the mayhem makes a kind of deranged sense.

It’s so spectacularly cold-blooded, and quick. It’s less than 100 pages. I loved it. Not for nothing, this New York Review Books Classics edition (and I’m not cool enough to know if there even are other editions available in English) is a pleasing object. It feels good to hold. And now that I’ve displayed a little more of my weirdness, Happy New Year y’all.

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: action, CBR13, Fiction, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Suspense, violence

chatelaine's CBR13 Review No:1 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: action, CBR13, Fiction, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Suspense, violence ·
Rating:
· 3 Comments

About chatelaine

CBR13 participantCBR11 participantCBR10 participantCBR  9CBR 8CBR 7CBR 6

mom of actual adult person / pretty damned good bartender...when that was a thing / hate hate hate writing but inexplicably always want to do this / COVIDly jobless silver lining: s o m u c h r e a d i n g / I was wrong to be optimistic about my 2020 participation. Or about anything re: 2020. We'll see about 2021. Y'all are awesome, though. View chatelaine's reviews»

Comments

  1. baxlala says

    January 5, 2021 at 10:57 pm

    This sounds great and like so much fun! Also, I don’t think it’s cheating if you wrote most of the review after the reread. Plus, you were so honest about it!

    Reply
  2. Denesteak says

    January 7, 2021 at 11:50 am

    I agree, I think it counts!!

    Reply
  3. chatelaine says

    January 7, 2021 at 12:51 pm

    Thanks for the validation!

    Reply

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