| Title | : | Toxicity |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0615965695 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780615965697 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 284 |
| Publication | : | First published April 10, 2014 |
Imagine the surreal universes penned by Philip K. Dick smashing into the gritty realities of Elmore Leonard, and you might have an idea of what type of book you’re about to get yourself into.
Toxicity is violent, repulsive, charming, and completely ridiculous. It’s a dark comedy for those without a soul.
When Maddox Kane is released from prison, he has no idea what the world has become. His ex-wife’s hooked up with a heroin addict, his daughter’s busy burying dead bodies behind drugstores, and his brother’s being held prisoner by an abusive lot lizard named Jazzy. Plus, apparently, there’s a new drug out on the street called Purple, and it’s going to destroy the world. Or, at least, make you commit unspeakable acts against Zooey Deschanel.
Darkly comedic and absurdly tragic, TOXICITY is a tale of horrible things happening to horrible people.
Toxicity Reviews
-
TOXICITY seeps under your skin, infecting you with black comedy, shocking violence, and the stinking desperation of bad people rotting in the sun. And yet somehow, we still root for these dark souls—and that is the genius of Max Booth III.
-
This is one of those books that you start reading and instantly become absorbed in. I never felt that this was a story about horrible things happening to horrible people though. Maddox and Addison are just victims of their environment and the decisions they make are questionable but make perfect sense because they don't know any better.
Max has created characters that you actually grow to like due to how stupid they can be. These characters and Booth's writing style make this one of those rare books that exist beyond one genre and blend into a variety of them. It's a tragic story and at the same time it can also be the most amazing car wreck you have ever seen.
Booth's debut novel is a blast to read and it does all hinge on one event that becomes the catalyst for everything that follows. Do yourself a favor and obey the fly and read this book. -
REVIEWED: Toxicity
WRITTEN BY: Max Booth III
PUBLISHED: TBD, 2014
Fire up the pink Cadillac and huff your latest dose of Purple, TOXICITY, is a wild, careening ride through a landscape of criminals, wild drugs, fantasy, and sweet hope. This is the inaugural novel by writer and editor, Max Booth III, who’s shown a deft hand in story creation through short fiction tales found over the past few years in magazines, anthologies, and collections. TOXICITY follows the intertwining lives of felon, Maddox Kane, his estranged daughter, Addison, and a motley array of their family members, friends, and enemies. Some of the more memorable characters are Maddox’s bumbling brother, Benny, and the man-eating hooker (the lot lizard) that moves in with them and, of course, the prophesying fly-god that presages Armageddon.
Quick-witted and outrageous, this book is truly not for everyone (i.e. those puritanical and/or sane). But if you get excited envisioning something that’s like ‘Pulp Fiction’ mixed with a dose of the supernatural and a wicked sense of humor, TOXICITY should top your reading list.
Oh, and if you should ever meet Maddox Kane in person, just don’t ever let on if you’re a White Sox fan!
Five out of Five stars -
Usually when I read a really off-the-wall story with a lot of crazy STUFF that happens, there are huge gaps in the actual storytelling. The action will be nonstop and the zingers zingy, but the writing itself suffers. The characters are transparent, or the dialogue is hacky and trite. The author spends too much time on the zaniness and action and either forgets about character and story or thinks that it doesn't matter.
That is SO not the case with Toxicity. I genuinely got attached to the characters even as I laughed and shuddered at their horrifying antics. Several times I spoke aloud, as though Max could hear me. "You sick son of a bitch!" And I loved every minute of it.
I would recommend Toxicity to anyone who liked Sin City, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, or Natural Born Killers. It's that damn good. -
Violent yet human, Toxicity is a strong story for those who are not easily offended.
For a full review, please go to
https://areviewerdarkly.blogspot.com/... and follow me on Twitter @josenher -
With his newest release, Toxicity, Max Booth III has taken a break from the wild western zombies of Black as well as the flash fiction of They Might Be Demons and thrown us into the complex, nasty world of the suburbs of Chicago. Having grown up there, I can vouch for this; they are truly frightening, indeed.
The world he shows us is one full of trashy scumbags and bad criminals, down on their luck losers and high school kids who are just as high as they are rich. He drives us smack dab in the middle of a bunch of trouble, lets us watch three separate storylines begin to interweave just enough to make us worry what might happen when they all come face to face, then kicks us out of the car and leaves us there, laughing as he drives away. It could be worse, but lucky for me, this fly just appeared and is giving me some advice.
There are three main characters in Booth’s Toxicity. We have Maddox Kane, a would-be star on the Chicago Cubs, who had the skills to be a major leaguer, but lost his chance thanks to his lack of skills when it came to small-time crime. Now, ten years later, he has been released from prison. But now he’s homeless, his family having abandoned him long ago, and he’s faced with an uncertain future. His daughter, Addison, also plays a big role in the story, but she has problems of her own. Sure, she’s got a nice boyfriend who would pretty much do anything for her, but outside of that, her life is hell. Her mom is pregnant and strung out, and her stepdad abuses her in every way imaginable. And now her dad is trying to re-enter her life, a dad that she barely even knows except for all the horror stories her mom has told her.
And then there’s Johnny Desperation. He’s a normal, everyday punk who lives in the rundown suburb of Loathing, Illinois. That is, until one day when the lottery numbers are 1-2-3-4-5-6 (reminds me of President Skroob’s luggage combination from Spaceballs), and his family wins the lottery. They abandon their stereotypical trashy lifestyle in Loathing (a fictional city) and move to the rich confines of Libertyville (a very real city), adopting an equally stereotypical lifestyle of the newly rich. It is in the ultra-rich hallways of his new private school that Johnny meets “purple,” a new drug that is quickly becoming all the rage, no pun intended.
Max Booth connects his three main character’s stories together in a very Guy Ritchie kind of way (not in a Madonna-starring bomb of a movie kind of way, but rather a bumbling criminals flying by the seat of their pants, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels kind of way) that leads up to a very Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino kind of finale. Maddox finds a place to stay at his brother’s trailer, but quickly realizes that his life of crime might not be completely behind him. Addison is attacked by a drug-crazy kid, and when her boyfriend Connor saves her, they find themselves in a bit of trouble as well. Meanwhile, Johnny has abandoned his former life and friends in favor of his new, rich lifestyle, one that includes girls (that want his money), drugs (that make him crazier and crazier), and a fly that convinces him that the End is near, and he is the only one that can do anything about it.
Toxicity is full of crazy intense violence, quirky characters, and a dark sense of humor that makes us temporarily forget the horrors that we are stuck in. As might be expected, everything culminates in an explosive finish, one that might not quite go the way you’d think it would. No character is safe from Booth’s madness as soon as heads start to roll, main character or not, which is something I heartily appreciate. The writing is smooth throughout, allowing the action to continue on full force from page one to the end, but still making room for inside jokes (from some characters names to the sudden appearance of a goat, there are quite a few fun nods along the way) and genre humor. Sure, there are a lot of characters to meet and get to know along the way, but this quickly becomes acceptable as we realize that this allows us even more fun at their expense. It’s interesting to see Booth take his usual horror approach and switch it around a bit to create a novel about crime, drugs, and family. This book gets a solid 4 out of 5 stars from this reviewer. -
Max’s Toxicity will make you laugh, cringe, and think ‘WTF, did I just read that?’, even as you blaze through page after page because you’ll want to know what happens next. Set in modern, gritty Chicago, this story’s violence contrasts with a troupe of immediately likable characters you wish you knew. Not that you’d loan them money or leave them in your car with the keys in the ignition, but you’ll enjoy spending time with them in this zany novel.
First there’s Maddox, a former Cubs baseball player who has just been released after a decade in prison. He’ll do anything to reunite with his daughter Addison—even if it means robbing a bank while wearing a pink ski mask, or fooling a hitman with a blanket over his lap. Is that pitched tent a Smith & Wesson, or an erection? But even the hardest athlete-turned-criminal-turned-concerned father cannot resist the almighty power of sweets—especially after he’s emptied said Smith & Wesson.
Next we have Johnny Desperation, a white trash jerk-off who wins the lottery, rejects his trailer park friends, has sex with rich bimbos, and finds himself addicted to the latest street drug: purple. It comes in a spray can, and one taste of its aerosol mauve bliss is enough to introduce him to The Fly, who wants to destroy the world. Who cares if Johnny dips his head into toilets and copulates with canines in his expensive bed? The Fly has chosen him as Its herald. And it posts crazy things on his Facebook wall.
Then we have Addison herself: seventeen, living with an abusive stepfather and a drug addict mother. She wants out of Chicago, out of the Toxicity, and her boyfriend Conner plans to help her. Never mind that he wears a wizard’s cape and drums for a band called the Asswarts. He’s a knight in shining armor, but touch his girlfriend, and he’ll slit your neck. Not because he’s mean, mind you, but he’s in love. And there is his Harry Potter fetish with that cape and all…
Toss in Benny, Maddox’s inept brother; Jazzy, a beast of a prostitute; Floyd the fastidious virgin; Candy, Johnny’s ex-girlfriend who wants to make bacon fetish porn; plus other memorable characters, then watch them all converge towards imagined salvation at Johnny’s house, which is fitted with a chocolate fountain and contains over 7,000 dolls. Oh, and sixty million dollars.
Sound crazy? Of course it is. But under all the flying bullets, purple puke, limousine blowjobs, bowling-ball slayings, Twinkies, and Big Macs, Max weaves a story about frantic hope, and the grim, impoverished world that feeds it. Everybody in this story wants money, trusts what they think it can do for them. Therein lies the real addiction. Yet that frantic hope never wanes, even as these characters speed towards a fate-filled rendezvous.
Oh, I’m not going to tell you how that turns out. All I can say is that I laughed, I cried, I farted. And when Max’s next novel comes out, I will definitely read it. So open up and take a hit of purple—just make sure your significant other doesn’t post your pic on Facebook afterwards. Yes, the one of you in bed with that poor dog. -
If Belgian drug writer Henri Michaux would've decided to re-write Hamlet, it would've probably become something close to Max Booth III's TOXICITY, a domestic tragedy seen through the lens of a hip, new (and fortunately for us fictional) drug called Jericho. I think my favourite aspect of this novel was the absurd and random chapters of Jericho victim Johnny Desperation, which have actually something to do with the overarching storyline, but operate within its own logic.
TOXICITY can feel sometimes a little crowded with the three parallel storylines vying for attention. One or two characters never really get off the ground and feel like plot devices for the others. But the others are where it's at. Sometimes you have to like a novel for what it does well and not for what it doesn't do. TOXICITY is fun, unhinged and idiosyncratic in the best possible way, and it throws everything but the kitchen sink at you. -
Man, this is messed up. Just, like...damn.
I'm not usually one for the downward spiral stories - you know, the ones that start in a bad place and then just get progressively worse until pretty much everyone's dead? Always star Andy Garcia? Yeah, they're really not my jam. But what Booth does here is he takes that genre and just vomits all over it. Yeah, there's the over-arching crime plot. But there's also a severely trippy drug epidemic subplot, one of the most awful (and yet endearing) family stories I've ever read, and a bunch of stuff about goats. This is like watching Suicide Kings while tripping balls on MDMA and cutting yourself. It's terrible. It's glorious. -
NetGalley review 03-11-16:
"Toxicity" is a raging comic inferno, delivered as a pitch-black, bizarre novel. For every laugh here, there's a haunting, reverberating scream somewhere in the darkness. There are gloriously otherworldly remarks and fantastically lurid images on every page. I couldn't help but chuckle, constantly at even the most atrocious, gruesome, and disturbing situations the characters got themselves into.
This was my second novel by MB III, and I've come to strongly believe that his mind is a mega-sewer in which it is a pleasure to drown.
"This was fucking brilliant. He was brilliant. It was all brilliant." -
Max Booth III has a talent for creating a sinister bizarro world that feels just like home. Everything is just one shade north of normal in that way that makes you sure that somewhere, probably not far from you, these scenarios are playing out as nonfiction--and that's an uncomfortable feeling.
It's a story of high stakes and low morals. If you like your social dread and hopelessness served with a side of humor, then you should definitely read this. -
Misfits, mayhem and Zooey Deschanel. Max Booth III's foray into the underbelly of life is like being sucker-punched by Tarantino. He offers a world where Desperation is is more than a state of despair, Jesus is a housefly determined to begin an apocalypse, and greed is a skewer that pierces the heart of the dammed.
-
Read all my reviews on
http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com
I'm sorry. I didn't like it.
I'd previously read How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers, and while it failed to deliver on the premise of its name, it was a nice enough read that I wanted to read Toxicity, too. Toxicity however, was toxic.
I feel like I have lost over the last two years the enjoyment in the extreme bizarre, hardly fitted together kind of novel. This one was one of those. It features a lot of different POVs and characters, and of course everything is going to fit in together at the end but it is the way how they get there and that was just not really there. None of the characters were even in the least likeable and I didn't like the raw writing in this one.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! -
3.5 rounded up
-
When Max Booth III asked me if I’d review Toxicity, I was very excited. I’ve been following Max’s career since he was writing short stories as a teenager. The first time we met at World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, I remember telling him “I think you’re brilliant,” a phrase I have used maybe three times in my life to describe living authors. I solicited a collaborative writing project from him right then and there, and though we’re slow going, I do still plan to write something amazing with him in the coming years.
Max Booth is just that good.
I read Toxicity in a sitting. While the author describes it as an homage to Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, I didn’t see the parallels as clearly as he. Perhaps it was the medium, but in book form, it reminded me more of three key contemporary authors. At first, the disjointed clutch of characters reminded me of the way Tom Robbins or Christopher Moore will weave together a story from multiple starting points, where an entire cast of hitherto unknowns ends up converging in one clever, epic climactic tangle toward the end. Add to this a hint of early Chuck Palahniuk in which the story is not only told from multiple perspectives Robbins-and-Moore style, but also from multiple timelines converging on the present, and this experimental narrative really hits the nail on the head. I would be remiss in my comparative duties if I did not also mention that the book deeply reminded me of David Wong’s John Dies at the End, given that both involve a strange hallucinogenic drug that alters reality for those who take it along with some slapstick “macabre-y” at which Hammer fans like myself always grin.
The cast includes a baseball-obsessed, recent ex-convict imprisoned for a rookie drug-dealing mistake and his bumbling brother; the Desperation family, centering on a teenaged boy named Johnny; a young girl from a dysfunctional family and her boyfriend, a member of a Harry Potter-themed musical band; a drug kingpin; a girl with cotton-candy-colored hair; and a dog named Zooey Deschanel. The mortar of story—the web that eventually attracts all the characters to one central location--is a new and terrifying drug called “purple,” referred to by the alternative street name, “Jericho.”
This story started off with a bang. After the first twenty chapters, I turned to my partner and said, “This is really good.” Again, this is not something I say very often of contemporary writers. Around the climax though—a scene where some of the characters botch a deal with a middle-manager of the drug industry—the book started to turn for me. It was at this point that two key things began occurring with some regularity. First, a set of recurring jokes that seemed forced and contrived eventually left me feeling like my friend, Max Booth, didn’t trust that his readers were smart enough to pick up the tail of the joke on their own. One repeated about eight times throughout the end chapters and each time I saw it, I released an audible groan. As a writer myself, I can imagine how this happened: it is so very difficult to “kill our darlings” in our own writing. The first time the repeated jokes appeared, I laughed, but each subsequent time, I found myself growing annoyed.
The second turn of events has to do with something a little heavier: the characters themselves. Toward the end, the characters (at least two of them) perform in a way inconsistent with their personalities up to the critical point. Both characters in question lose everything that has ever mattered to them in the blink of an eye. Yet, they react in a flip, cavalier disregard for those things. They behave as though nothing really mattered to them at all (though, up to this point, we have more than a hundred pages pointing to the opposite notion). The best example of this is the moment when one of them is caught and, rather than express any sentiment for the recent losses, instead ends with a flip joke. The other character shows very little “believable” emotion after experiencing a series of traumatic events and losing the one thing left that this character held dear. There was a hint of loss, and then, poof. Gone.
Regardless of a few turns in the plot-line and delivery, this book was very good. I enjoyed it enough to finish it in one sitting and to compare the craft of it to two of my all-time favorite authors (Tom Robbins and Christopher Moore). I stand by my original assessment of Max Booth’s writing abilities: he’s brilliant and I fully expect his work to be adapted for feature films within the next three years (did you hear that, Max? Better get writing). I recommend this book to anyone who likes to find the structure in chaos, to anyone who enjoys a tongue-in-cheek tangle of yarn about depravity and crime, and to anyone who just wants to read a good book.
Happy reading!
~Araminta Star Matthews, author of Blind Hunger, and coauthor of Horror High School: Return of the Loving Dead. -
The author asked me to read and review an Advance Reader Copy of this book. The ARC e-book had some typoes, homophones, and misused words such as pass instead of past but I could overlook them to read the story and when published, I'm sure these imperfections will be corrected.
- - - -
I'm 25% through, getting ready to start chapter 10.
So far we have been introduced to newly released ex-con, Maddox Kane who had a short career in major league baseball until he was caught as a cocaine dealer and Maddox's brother, Benny who has agreed to let Maddox stay with him in his trailer at the trailer park after Maddox's ten year sentence was served.
We've also gone with Maddox to confront Maddox's ex-wife, Sheryl (now a druggie) and her current loser husband, Del. Maddox's teen daughter, Addison, lives with her mom and step dad and Maddox wants custody. Addison tells her boyfriend Connor, who plays in a Harry Potter themed band, that her mom told her that Maddox was dead.
We have witnessed Addison and Connor partying with Addy's friend Candy Blossom and Candy's boyfriend Johnny Desperation.
Later, Johnny Desperation, split from girlfriend Candy after his parent's Ruth and Roland win the state lottery, is served caviar at his posh private school while he is high (graping) on a drug known as the Purple Stuff aka Jericho.
Homeless junkie Donald is hooked on the drug known as the Purple Stuff which is making the rounds too and he is apparently a psycho wild card.
- - - -
I'm finished reading now. When the book blurb says this is a tale of horrible things happening to horrible people, that is no lie. It seems like everyone deserved to die due to their misdeads. The book has a high, grotesque body count; murders, rapes, incest, robbery and beastiality abound in this book. The oozing jelly of an eye being stabbed, crazed sex with a dead pregnant woman, and more depravity. It was all a bit too much for me but then again, so was that movie Pulp Fiction and it has a heck of a cult following. If you eschew gratuitous violence, avoid this book. If you don't mind a high body count with unredemptive characters and a plot bordering on parody read away.
I gave the book two stars because I didn't hate it but I also didn't find it engaging or engrossing. The characters were caricatures and the plot was basically a set of crime sprees performed by weak-minded individuals. How does a drug smuggling major league baseball rookie go from that to murderous robber after ten years in jail? I think I'm the wrong audience for this book. -
First off, let me say that I received this book free through the Goodreads Giveaway event. The author was quick on sending the book off, included his signature, a special personal message, an 8pg song list made especially to be played for every chapter. All very appreciated.
I suppose some can say that drugs saves lives and also that it takes them; but what if a certain drug can do both? Jean d'Arc spoke with God; did that help or hinder her cause? What about God's cause? How would WE even know the answers to these metaphysical questions?
Fun facts: rich man's coffee is kopi luwak - beans that have traveled through the digestive system of an Asian Palm Civet. A pit bull named Zooey Deschanel! (and OMG! he mentions "2 Girls 1 Cup"!)
There's violence, a rape scene and some gently handled aftermath, but definitely not brushed aside, blown over. The trauma is clear. Hard to take the truth, here, but the writer doesn't shy from it, nor exalt in the situation. And yes, there's "regular" sex too. A very special drug is used throughout; demonic visions become evident, at least to some; a lot of very strange drug use, leading to aberrant behavior, (I was going to add 'very', but that would be an oxymoron.)
And by pg 116, the book has definitely changed from twisted humor to twisted horror…
Weird, bad people are are made beyond weird and the volume is definitely turned up on the Bad Radio dial. Talking flies (of normal size; at least they aren't huge!), one of which is the Savior and boy! Does he have a plan for humanity - they're easy to control once they've breathed in the Purple, a drug also called Jericho.
Murder, mayhem, McDonald's, and madness; pimps, hookers, and hotel rooms; guns; death, destruction, dark comedy; if weirdness bothers you, this book will undo you, in a similar way that Trainspotting did; no gratuitous vomiting, but vomiting, there is - you may feel like joining in; and pg 222 is one of the grossest things I may have ever read. If purple is your favorite color, you may have to think about changing that opinion after reading this book.
Reminds me a bit of Palahniuk and Charlie Williams... -
This story is nothing if not a wild ride, but more than that, it's a wild ride whose trajectory goes directly along the edge... from beginning to end... with maybe a couple slips OVER the edge.
It's one of those great tales that weaves together a bunch of people's lives until they all lead up to this tremendous, climactic, explosive ending, with plenty of things along the way that you don't see coming until they smack you in the face, or stab you in the eye. It's mostly the story of Maddox Kane, who has just been released after a ten-year stay in prison. He's desperately trying to get back in touch with his teenage daughter to make amends and get her away from her deplorable excuse for a mother, and mom's new junkie boyfriend, but he faces some rather insurmountable obstacles. It's also the story of Johnny Desperation, a teenage misfit and sometimes friend of Maddox's daughter Addison, whose dysfunctional trailer trash family has just won the lottery. Being a member of the nouveau riche, Johnny is sent to a new upper class school where he is introduced to a mysterious and powerful
mind-altering drug that eventually alters not only his mind, but his very life and the lives of all those around him.
So Maddox enlists the aid of his none-too-bright brother Benny to help him amass the huge amount of money he figures he will need to buy full custody of Addison from his junkie ex, while Johnny embarks on his journey as the servant of his new fly-Messiah. Along the way, there are hookers, pimps, drug lords, a rape, some necrophilia, and a mounting body count. Oh yeah, there's also a dog named Zooey Deschanel...
I would like to say it's a story about when bad things happen to good people, but honestly the vast majority of these people are not only not-so-good, they're pretty deplorable human beings. I cringed an awful lot throughout this story, but I also laughed a hell of a lot, and I look forward to more stories from Mr. Booth. -
The idea of “madcap noir” might be hard to wrap your head around, but that best describes what you’re in for inside this book. Deeply flawed characters engaged in ridiculous antics that often result in an ongoing series of bizarre events, usually accompanied by intense amounts of violence. And mind-shattering insanity. Don’t forget the reality-warping drugs.
The story itself bounces back around between a number of characters all living in the vicinity of Loathing, Illinois. From Maddox Kane, just out of prison after a ten year stint and his idiot brother Benny, to Maddox’s teenage daughter Addison and her group of delinquent friends. One of her former friends, Johnny, has escaped the urban cesspool of Loathing with his parents’ winning the lotto, only to get hooked on the latest designer drug, Jericho. We also have pink ski masks, a vicious lot lizard, a garage band based off Harry Potter, a massive collection of baby dolls, zealous baseball fandom, inappropriate affection towards a dog named Zooey Deschanel, sixty million dollars, and a fly buzzing around telling people they might be the messiah.
Max Booth III has written one of those books that is dark and brutal, but yet you can’t help but laugh out loud at various parts, wondering “WTF am I reading?” It is definitely not for those with weak stomachs or delicate sensibilities, but I highly recommend it for fans of Tim Dorsey or even Chuck Palahniuk. It’s a hysterical, depraved, occasionally touching novel about the worst in us. And that’s just fun. -
Toxiciy is Dark. Toxicity is twisted. At times, Toxicity is hilarious, without ever failing to be dark and twisted.
Toxicity is part jet black shaggy-dog story, part 'True Romance'-style dark love tale, part diary of hallucinogenic psychosis. It's not quite full Gonzo, but the ghost of Dr. Thompson definitely lurks at the edges of the page from time to time.
Toxicity has a lot going on.
As the title suggests, it's a cocktail that invites unease, if not nausea. The elements noted above may not seem like a smooth fit, and there's a good reason for that - they ain't. It's an uneasy, unnerving, and occasionally uneven ride, but it also contains breakneck pacing and some deft characterizations. Booth III appears to understand the basic truth that farce and tragedy actually the same genre, and he uses the shifting lenses of the different lead characters to give us both versions of that genre. The effect is unsettling, often jarring, and compelling in equal measure, as the characters dance around each other, building to a climax that felt both unpredictable and inevitable - a neat trick.
Some of the bleakness was too much for me, and occasionally the genre and tone shifts threatened emotional whiplash, but I have to give credit to the author for being willing to risk that in pursuit of a very ambitious story that, for the most part, manages to be by turns emotionally engaging and laugh-out-loud funny.
Yeah, Max, I dug it. Good work, man. -
This book was previously described to me as a dark comedy. I’m not sure whether that is 100% accurate, though there is certainly dark humor in its pages, and the book may not be easy to classify otherwise.
The story follows the characters of Maddox Kane, a man recently released from prison; his daughter Addison, who has a difficult life at home to say the very least; and Johnny Desperation, a young man who falls into a series of curious occurrences that include the lottery and a fly. The fly in question isn’t just any fly: this is “The” Fly, though we aren’t talking about Jeff Goldblum here.
Johnny’s story plays out like flashes of an apocalyptic prophecy laced with LSD. The lives of the other two characters balance the story, if balance is the correct word, with a combination of action, grit, and the earlier-mentioned humor, a product of the characters’ quirks and their manners of dealing with contrastingly heavy circumstances.
It’s a book that may pummel some unprepared readers and disorient others, but I’ll put forth a bit of reading advice: don’t walk into this one with rigid expectations. Don’t expect anything. Take the book for what it is, a spiky twisting tunnel of mayhem and a commendable debut novel from Max Booth III. -
Toxicity is a non stop black comedy that literally had me laughing out loud at some points. I'm not talking about text LOL, I mean chucking to myself in public like an insane person. It's not all yuks though, there are plenty of uncomfortable moments and even some thought provoking social satire. If you enjoy early Palahnuik, John Dies At The End, or Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels then you will enjoy Toxicity. That's not to say that Booth doesn't have his own style here, because he definitely does, but if you enjoy any of those books/films you should enjoy Toxicity. The characters are flawed as we all are but you want them catch a break. They don't, but that's life. Benny is a great character! I will definitely reader future released from Max Booth III and so should you!
-
This book was awesome for a lot of reasons but what sold me completely was the wrap up at the end. It's hard to trust an author you haven't read before. The characters were so vivid and likeable, or despicable, that I was going to be pissed if they weren't there for a reason. I wasn't let down. Every character matters, every step in the plot feels natural, even if absurd, and all around the book's tone kind of messes with you. It was disgusting, light-hearted, bothering, funny, disturbing and awesome interchangeably throughout. The end was great and my only grievance is that there wasn't more of the fly. The fly was so cool and I wanted more terrible things to happen. Awesome read for sure and already getting started on the author's next book.
-
I honestly have to say I got a little lost and didn't understand the conclusion... I get that drugs and money can be toxic..
I was hoping for some of the weirdness of Quentin As advertised but the book just seemed loony without any sense.
Here is what I got: a group of 4 poor friends hang out on the playground, one of them wins the lottery and ditches the group. This boy starts to drink "purple" spray (looks like a can of axe you spray down throat), which makes him hallucinate. It turns out one of the groups girls father just got out of prison and he tries to reunite with her and somehow they all end up in the same place at the same time and I get lost after that... Does the world end? Do flys take over? -
Do you miss the wild roller coaster ride of "John Dies at the End"? Do you miss the never ending "it certainly couldn't get any worse" of "Breaking Bad"? Well, here is your cure. Max Booth III puts you in the coaster car with a brick on the controls. Then he slaps you every time you try and slow it down. He presents you with a set of circumstances and then forces you to sit helplessly while the entire universe careens wildly out of control. You never dislike any of these characters. Instead, you pray that the decisions they make will not make anything worse, but it continues to happen. Go read this book!
-
A great, fun, and fast read!
-
Gritty, surprising, and well paced. Maddox is a great character, one I'd play in an RPG.
-
I received this arc from Netgalley.
This is one crazy, hilarious book. And I enjoyed every bit of it. A quick read that definitely entertains. I will be looking for other books by this author.
