Stephen C. Bird's book, "Catastrophically Consequential," was a pretty funny book. I got it on one of the giveaways and am thankful for that. The humor in it is not meant for all people. I think this kind of humor will put many people off, but I wasn't phased by it. This book is good for a read, but it isn't something I would want to get a hard-cover version of for a personal collection that I would read repeatedly. Still, it's good enough and entertaining with a lot of laughs. If you want a book with a decent enough flow and a lot of laughs, then this is the book for you! I thought I had reviewed this book, but sadly it must not have saved it. ( )

***PLEASE NOTE THAT I WON THIS IN A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY***

This review was first posted on Melissa's Midnight Musings on August 22 2012.


This book is bizarre. Almost as bizarre as The Sugar Frosted Nutsack. Almost. Catastrophically Consequential, at the very least didn't make me want to bang my head into a wall because it basically repeated itself all the way through.

No, this book had a variable story. But it failed to catch my attention.

It's full of ridiculous puns. Not even clever ones. Just a bunch of words that are misspelled and made to look like they're clever. There are plenty of random name droppings and strange associations too.

And then there's an entire chapter that's written in text-speak. That made me want to gouge out my eyes. And the chapter after that is written in redneck speak. Just as bad.

I understand that the book is supposed to be satirical, but in some spots this was just down right offensive, covered in thinly veiled jokes. I won't go into specifics because I don't want to upset any readers, but I'll just say be warned. There are also some semi-gruesome violent descriptions in this book as well.

It definitely lives up to it's name being that it's catastrophic, but as for consequential, I'm not sure....

I don't even know who I would recommend this to other than someone who likes bizarro fiction, which, I guess I'm learning from reading this, that I don't.
( )

I received this book for free as a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.

I'm going to be 100% honest here, if I hadn't won this book in the giveaway and subsequently felt that I should review it- I probably would have never picked it up.

I started reading this book on April 20th and managed to read two chapters that day. I then attempted to read the third chapter and felt so overwhelmed that I had to stop. I didn't pick it up again until the 24th of April. For four days I stared at [b:Catastrophically Consequential|13498101|Catastrophically Consequential|Stephen C. Bird|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1330057887s/13498101.jpg|19042813] and for four days I felt extremely frustrated. I'm not usually one to not finish a book, even if I don't really like it, and I didn't want my first Goodreads First Reads book to be one of them.

Once I picked it up again, this time focused on getting through the book, understanding as much as I could, I managed to make it through.

If you don't want spoilers I suggest that you don't read the next part.

For those who haven't read this book--or at least attempted--you won't fully understand what I'm talking about when I say that the majority of the book was written in what I can only describe as if a drunken German hill-billy was speaking.

Heahz uh last-minute reminder: we takin our gun-siez case dey any Druidyck-Wyckan-Pagan woship-pers down at duh Fyremenziez Fieldie; themmerz duh worst kind uh heatheners.

This quote is surprisingly not from the chapter that was hardest to read and from what I understood the narrator is talking about bringing their guns to a fire where they were burning the Cora-Ann (Qur'an)and were 100% okay with shooting (and killing) anyone who tried to stop them.

In terms of clarity and ease of understanding I would give this book half a star if I could. It honesty was the most annoying book I've ever read when it comes to the actual reading aspect. There were multiple times that I had to sit and think about the words just to figure out what [a:Stephen C. Bird|3087044|Stephen C. Bird|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1359732359p2/3087044.jpg] was trying to convey.

There are words such as szcztall (stall), kulchural (cultural) and mythologistickal (mythological) that require a double check to make sure you've understood and then there are the words such as themmerz (them{they} are), heahz (here is) and deah (they are) that you need to understand the rest of the sentence to fully understand them.

On top of all the 'normal' words that have been given a weird German-hill-billy twist there are tons of people and places that are well known that also have new spellings. Jeh-Hee-Zeus (Jesus), Mecks-Sicko (Mexico), Kanadyans (Canadians) and Two-Tank-Amen (Tutankhamun). Though, to be honest I though these were pretty clever.

The story itself is quite hard to follow, the timeline is quite scattered and some of the chapters just didn't fit into the story. More specifically the first, second, and last chapters have the same 'the world is f*cked up theme as the rest of the book, but from what I understood they don't fit into the story.

Despite the numerous characters and plot lines the general idea of the novel remains the same. Most of these characters are involved in an alternative lifestyle. Either one of sexual nature that is 'different', whether it be part of the LGBT community, the S&M community, incestual relations or weird fetishes (such as being urinated on). Or one that involves excessive use of hallucinogenic drugs. Those characters as well as the few that don't fall into one of those categories all share a hatred for minorities-- even when most of them fall into one themselves. Leading them down a path of self-hatred.

The minorities that are hated on in the novel are mainly the poor, the people of middle-eastern decent, the sexual deviants and drug addicts (including food as a 'drug').

In my opinion this novel is a commentary on how damaged our world is and how hypocritical we are. No one group of people are 'perfect', each of us has a different view of the world and unless we stop judging others for their choices, no matter how weirded out we are by them, we will continue to fall in a downward spiral.

Maybe I missed the point of the novel completely, but I think that the title [b:Catastrophically Consequential|13498101|Catastrophically Consequential|Stephen C. Bird|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1330057887s/13498101.jpg|19042813] refers to how messed up this world is and how much human kind will have to pay for the way we have treated each other and the planet itself.

My half star for the writing aspect of the novel combined with the four stars I want to give [a:Stephen C. Bird|3087044|Stephen C. Bird|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1359732359p2/3087044.jpg] for the main concept of the novel makes it hard for me to decide between a four and a five.

However, given the fact that I thought I was going to hate the book, after reading the first chapter, I'm going to round up to a five for surprising me with how much I actually like it. ( )

This book was truly silly. I really am not sure how it got published. It was obviously created by someone who had a rather trenchant wit and active imagination, but to publish something like this is beyond me. It is a collection of what amounts to rants by different characters that the author has created. All are equally silly, nonsensical and jaded. The author is a performance artist who created these characters and performs these rants in public to live audiences. Why he felt that they would go over well in print I do not know. I love good satire and black humor, but this was neither of those, this was just off the wall. For example, a self loathing rich girl goes to a party where she is surrounded by in his words "Eurotrash". She baits them by telling them she hates them all because they are all posers and hypocrites and a whole string of unfortunate labels. Unlike other times she has done this, they don't laugh at her, they think that she hates herself so much, she wants to die. They get very excited, and as a group go get all the kitchen implements they can lay their hands on, and they pound, stab, and beat her to death as a mob, cheering each other on - thinking this is what she wants and they are fulfilling her wishes. When she is dead, they feel like they have done a good thing, and go back to partying, while the body lies on the floor a bloody mess, completely ignored. I guess I don't hate self loathing rich people enough to think it's funny that they get murdered at a party after spewing venom at strangers. All life is precious; that is just sick.

In another, a girl's Mother is waiting in her car for her daughter to be done with school. While she is waiting, she notices something is going on in a hearse in the parking lot. She goes to look, and finds the school ho and the football captain doing the deed in the back. She tells them to stop, and the girl calls the Mother a ho and a fight ensues. The Mother goes back to her car, and the girl follows, the fight continues. The Mother it turns out, has a magic yearbook which has special powers, which she brings to bear on the girl. While she is saying the magic words, the girl grabs the yearbook and after the Mother finishes saying the words, the girl is burned to ashes, right there in front of witnesses. The daughter finally gets out of school, and the Mother drives away, thinking that a good thing has been done.

I don't understand why this book ever came out in print. It may be good as performance art, but without the artist in person, the text came out both flat and rather sick, in my humble opinion. I did not find it either humorous or creative, just annoying and unprintable. It is the first book that I've gotten through GoodReads FirstReads that I haven't liked. Unfortunate - but that's how things go sometimes. ( )

Catastrophically Consequential is not for the faint. Stephen Bird encompasses every stereotype known to man upon which he showers a “catastrophically consequential” outlook to expire his own characters. He stretches through time and space hitting “Amurycka Profunda”, “West Whoreville” all the way to “Doucheyland” in this continual diatribe against…everyone. He uniquely creates the illusion of a utopian “Welt” by illustrating the truly opposite in his book satirically foreshadowing the possible apocalyptic future on the world’s present condition. The author orchestrates a “mélange à trios” between the language he uses, his humor and the subject matter. It isn’t essential to know German in order to read this book but it does add to the humor. For someone who prides herself on her grammar and the written word, I find it refreshing to read a book that genuinely challenges the mind.I wouldn’t have normally picked this book up for its storyline but find that its creativity and uniqueness make it an unusual read that breaks up the monotony of a true daily dilemma between vampires and werewolves. ( )