All My Friends Are Dead - Avery Monsen & Jory John

Today's review comes from my delinquent brother, Matthew Irving.   He fights fires seasonally, takes amazing pictures, and travels the world for the sole purpose of making me exceedingly jealous.  He's very good at all of it.   However, when he contacted me the other day about a book that he wanted to review, I was hesitant.  I mean, I've read his blog and so my conscience forced me to give him a few guidelines. 1) Punctuate and capitalize.  2) Do not use any form of the word "effing".  If any of our readers gravitate toward the sporadically punctuated, intentionally un-capitalized, effing-laden prose, then feel free to head on over to Matt's Blog of Negativity where sarcasm reigns supreme, snickering is second-nature, and you can read his thoughts on such diverse topics as Sarah Palin's new reality show, Sun chips, and sperm shoes, just to name a few. 

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Summary:  If you're a dinosaur, all of your friends are dead. If you're a pirate, all of your friends have scurvy. If you're a tree, all of your friends are end tables. Each page of this laugh-out-loud illustrated humor book showcases the downside of being everything from a clown to a cassette tape to a zombie. Cute and dark all at once, this hilarious children's book for adults teaches valuable lessons about life while exploring each cartoon character's unique grievance and wide-eyed predicament. From the sock whose only friends have gone missing to the houseplant whose friends are being slowly killed by irresponsible plant owners (like you), All My Friends Are Dead presents a delightful primer for laughing at the inevitable.  (Summary and Image from borders.com)

My Review: All My Friends are Dead is a pseudo-children's book that is incredibly difficult to summarize, but apparently Borders (see above) did a pretty good job of it. Unfortunately, I'm a busy man (not really) and I'm sure the person who summarized the book spent hours wracking their brain in order to come up with it (they probably didn't). This awesome book is a book about life, death and other things dying, but its overlying aim is to make you laugh, more than anything. What makes it so funny is its blatant sarcasm, as well as its illustrations. For some reason, they hit the funny nerve right where it needs to be hit. It uses the illustrations in order to create an atmosphere of awkward pauses. It is very much my type of sarcasm and the awkward pauses are priceless.

All My Friends Are Dead is definitely a book worth owning and a steal at $10.00, but if you're too cheap or you have different priorities, like children, driving to the library to rent it would be a worthwhile trip.  On that note, it's $10.00!  Don't eat at McDonald's for lunch -- buy the book instead.  Or sell plasma.  Do what you have to in order to get your mitts on this book. Here's another book review that probably does a better job of describing it, or you can visit the book website where you can read the first few pages of the book.  Hopefully, you'll see why it's nearly impossible to describe.
 
My Rating:  I'd give it 5 Stars, but know that my sense of humor is probably a little morbid, so maybe a 4.5 for "normal" people.
 
Sum it up: If you love sarcastic humor and awkward pauses as well as a few dozen excellently illustrated characters, you'll love this book. Because it's so short, it can be used as a coffee table book and I'd encourage it. If everyone in the world could read this book once, it would make my day.
 
PS.  To read what Matt really thinks of this book, click here.