Grant is Reading: Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore
Over the past couple of days I completed reading Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore, which is a sequel to his earlier work entitled A Dirty Job. Both novels follow the events of Charlie Asher, a self-described beta male who runs a barely profiting secondhand shop in San Francisco. In the first book of the series, Charlie receives a book in the mail entitled: “The Great Big Book of Death”. In it are instructions on how to carry out the tasks of a Death Merchant.
What both novels do incredibly well is delve into the mythology of the underworld and rooting it into a contemporary context. Christopher Moore is a master at using language to propel what appears to be a natural sarcastic wit that will have you laughing out loud wherever you choose to read. While I would say that the conflicts in both books wrap up rather quickly and neatly, the progression until the respective final battles are compelling and menacing up until that point. The key highlight though is how Moore blends in comedy to balance everything out. Just as a hint, the sequel, Secondhand Souls, provides us with one of the foulest mouthed 7-year old fictional characters that I’ve ever seen, while also still making her adorable.
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