Review: Jesse Andrews – Munmun

Munmun
Jesse Andrews

In a world where your size is determined by your wealth, it’s dangerous to be poor – you could be eaten by a cat or your father could be trodden on by someone larger. Warner and his sister have to try to make it work, and the only way for Prayer to move up is to marry someone richer than her. Warner on the other hand has plenty of get-rich-quick schemes.

The storyline on this is quite decent, with quite a few plotlines to keep the reader entertained. Unfortunately, the narrative was a little scattered, and I think it could have benefited from Prayer’s perspective. Warner was so completely biased against the Bigs that the filtered narrative was difficult to follow and a bit unpleasant.

Something that irritatedme the wholetime was the runtogetherwords likethis. Why wasthis necessary? This was clearly a differentsci-fiworld and ifthese were intendedto highlightthis difference, they wereunnecessary. Anddid I mention that theywere annoying? So toothe interiorcommetary by Warner. Seehowyoulikeit!

I requested this novel without noticing that the author was the same as Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and The Haters. That should have warned me off it, but it didn’t because I was so intrigued by the concept. The writing style just couldn’t keep me, and I was reading just to get to the end. Now, about that ending. I wasn’t satisfied really. I understood his motives, and I really appreciated them, but in the end I don’t think it made a big difference that he rampaged for a while. Except that it made him feel better?

Of course, anything that involves size makes me think of The Sin Eater’s Daughter. It’s not the same concept at all, but that novel is worth checking out. Or maybe Ready Player One where it is also very difficult to move socio-economic status. I don’t highly recommend this novel, but I will give it three stars because I think other people who aren’t going to be irritated by the writing style will enjoy it.