What Dies First: John, or My Enjoyment?

John Dies At The End by David Wong (Actually Jason Pargin)

Pages: 453 Genre: horror, humor

Rating: 1.5 Star

Kindle Notes and Highlights

I normally don't do this, but I'm going to suggest just reading the official description of this book on Goodreads. Basically: Best friends David and John accidentally get swept up in the world of the soy sauce drug, giving them access to an alternate universe. And then things get weird.

This book was originally published in 2009, and unfortunately, for everything I enjoyed about it, there was another slur spoken that drew me out of it. And I get it: it was a different time. I've read every YouTuber notes app apology that has written the same things. Which is why, in 2025, this book would only be perfect for boys who are teetering on the edge of the alt right pipeline who are big fans of both Shane Dawson, "Stranger Things," and the worst Stephen King book you can think of. I don't want to sound like too much of a hater: I didn't hate it all. The writing style was mostly fun, despite his best efforts I enjoyed David and John as characters (well, I enjoyed John), and I enjoyed some of the plot. But ultimately, this book wasn't for me.

Sometimes when I read older books (usually those written by men), it becomes very clear to me that the author didn't consider that someone like me — a woman — can read at all, much less that I'd ever pick up this book. I'm so far away from being the target demographic that I might as well be on a different continent. Again, I get what the book was going for. Yes, it was the Bad Guys who were doing most of the racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism. But when every joke is just, "Look, isn't it funny how I'm technically barely maybe not being racist/sexist/homophobic/ableist!" it gets old really quick. It's lazy writing. Especially the excessive use of the r-slur. You're writing a 400+ page book and can't think of a single other synonym for stupid or bad and you want me to think that I'm the problem for disliking it? Okay.

I know that, for many readers, I'm just being a killjoy. Read what you want. But this book was trying too hard to be funny while failing to tell jokes that would hit for exclusively white men anyway.

Other than the general lack of social awareness, the book started off really strong. I'm a huge fan of characters/narrators like Percy Jackson and Ernest Cunningham; I like a protagonist who is writing the book with a meta-awareness of being the author. In fact, this was the strongest aspect of the entire story. The dry, subtle style of jokes were funny, and it added an interesting layer to the narrative.

The writing itself was less impressive. The first few chapters of the book were really interesting and engaging, and I was really into the story. Then I looked and realized I had barely started, and the book just kept on going. If you had told me this book was written to build hype for a Netflix Limited Series, I'd believe you. It was a series of mini-stories that were vaguely brought together to give the illusion of a plot.

This book was held together entirely with sarcasm and absurd moments that are included more for shock value than story-building. After the fourth exploded person or the twelfth gross bug thing, it sort of lost its punch. I wish the book had cared more about storytelling, because the moments that did were interesting and engaging. But yes, it was shocking, and I guess that is primarily what the author was going for.

The next paragraph is going to be a spoiler. This is me warning you. Skip the next paragraph if you need to.

I think I'm mostly just bothered by the title. John did not die at the end. He died a little at the beginning, but he got better. By the end, he was fine. David never felt the need to address this. Why did you title your book "John Dies At the End" if John was going to live and if David was never going to acknowledge it at all? And I liked John (somehow), so it's not that I wanted him dead. But I would've liked some kind of awareness. Was I just being clickbaited? By a BOOK?

This book was just not my thing. It was too long, too wanna-be-edgy, and too proud of itself. I'm happy to leave it to the people who like it, and I will be happy in my own literary bubble.