Title: Your Best Apocalypse Now
Author: Taylor Hohulin
Genre: Comedy with elements of supernatural, apocalyptic, and even mystery, but hard to fully categorize
Trigger Warnings: Fatphobia (mentions), injury (mentions), violence (brief), unreality (mild)
Back Cover:
Daniel Blake isn’t a prophet, but by the time two angels show up on his couch with questions about his visions, he’s in too deep to come clean.
When Daniel wrote Your Best Apocalypse Now, it was supposed to be a scam. Instead, it was an accurate breakdown of the official plan for the apocalypse. The only problem? Doomsday hasn’t gone according to plan. When the appointed time comes (October 15, 2021, at precisely 10:56 pm, Central Standard Time, if you’re curious), the great world-devouring beast Fyarthlohopp is a complete no-show. Now the angels want answers, and they think Daniel has them.
Daniel wouldn’t mind if the end of the world got postponed a little longer—he is, after all, somewhat attached to the world in question—so he joins the angels on a quest to investigate how Fyarthlohopp could miss such a crucial appointment. The way Daniel sees it, if he’s going to save the world, the best place he can be is with the creatures tasked with its destruction.
As Daniel embarks on a journey filled with strange creatures, alternate dimensions, and a surprising number of offices, one question burns bright in his mind and refuses to go away: How does one sabotage an apocalypse, anyway?
Review:
I’ve had this book on my to-read list for years – possibly since even before the book came out. I’ve had spoken to the author previously when he sent me a review copy of his book The Marian, and I can’t remember if he told me Your Best Apocalypse Now was in the works or if I just found it following one of his author pages. Regardless, I never got around to finishing the rest of the Marian series (I have a bad habit of saying “I can’t wait to see where this series is going!” and then never actually doing that), but I wanted to read this one so much that I eventually broke down and bought the thing.
Now, at first glance you might go, “Jay, you don’t generally like comedies.” Which is usually true. However, what I do like is weird, wacky, unique, and original takes on religious topics. And a scammer prophet pretending to help angels investigate why the apocalypse didn’t happen so he can actually stop it from happening sounded exactly up my alley. Plus I remember Taylor being a good writer from when I read The Marian (admittedly almost a decade ago), so I figured it would at least be well-written.
Now, after all that preamble, let’s get into my thoughts on the book itself.
This is one of those light, fun books that really isn’t taking itself – or anything else – too seriously. Even though the plot is based around the end of the world and the complete destruction of humanity, there’s very little that’s actually dark or serious. Even looking at the trigger warnings, there aren’t many. It leans hard into its comedic elements and is largely light, funny, and above all, absurd.
I think the absurdity is what I liked about it so much. The unexpected and absurd, after all, is what I tend to find funniest. A combination end-of-the-world prediction and self-help book written entirely as a cash grab that turns out to be right? Hilarious. (And I legitimately want to read that book.) The great world-devouring beast having an office with a bored receptionist? Hysterical. Ridiculous and slightly heretical portrayals of God and angels? Funny and fascinating. Some of the one-liners fell flat, but more were on point. The chapter titles were fantastic. I legitimately laughed quite a bit. Your Best Apocalypse Now is the one thing that, in my experience, most comedy books struggle to be: Funny.
The plot is fairly straightforward – largely a series of “talk to this person, who gives you information that means you now need to talk to that person” quests as Daniel and his angels go from absurd situation to absurd situation in the quest to find the missing world-devouring beast. The characters were fun enough to follow around for a book and I did genuinely enjoy Daniel, but they weren’t particularly robust. What really shines here is the ridiculous, absurd concepts and ideas and the humor that the absurdity creates.
Your Best Apocalypse Now is what it set out to be: Light, fun, absurd, not very deep but enjoyable and funny all the same. (Although if you look beyond the surface, it does gently touch on some interesting theological ideas.) I found it genuinely funny in many places and enjoyed the whole book thoroughly. It’s a perfect book for some relaxing reading between heavier books, or if you just want something where you don’t have to worry about Themes or Motifs or Important Ideas. There aren’t any Important Ideas in this book – but there are a ton of absurd and funny ones, and if that’s what you want, this book will deliver.
Bluejay Reads 