This is very much one of those books where the main character is an asshole who is kind of a jerk to everyone, especially women. I feel like the author was maybe trying to parody this idea a bit but it still just felt kind of gross and eye-roll-y. A fun concept and a relatively quick read but if you don't want a main character who is a slimeball towards every woman in his life, unrepentantly, then do not read. Neat ending, though. ( )

The main character is SUPER unlikable. He's a douchebag that fucks multiple women, is vulgar, lazy, does stupid adult things. There's a lot of sex, to the point of being porn-like. And the things he does don't justify the ending.There's an underlying technique of "is this actually all in his mind?" that distracts from the text.

The central idea is "what if a down-on-his-luck author actually did make a deal with the devil for a bestselling book". The problem is that this is a character book. And the kind of character who would make this deal is a douchebag. Like if Stephen King drank a Jekyll-and-Hyde potion and all we saw was Hyde. Sad to say, Barry Lyga is no longer one of my favorite authors. I probably wouldn't have finished it if it hadn't been so short. ( )

I am really a big fan of the writer, him being my second favorite overall, so keep that in mind while I share my thoughts on this ebook - a little bit of bias here.

This book cost me just over $3 and change, but by the time I reached the end I would have been happy paying about $15-20, the normal price range for many books I buy. I was just that satisfied with the way it ended.

Something that stood out to me was the kind of humor that is...well, funny, but still damaged, dark, and a bit depressing. I don't mean that you will get the blues reading this - believe me, it's a good read - but it runs in the same vein as previous works of his, "The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl" and "Goth Girl Rising" in that the messages running through it have that darker tone, brought out even more here by the supernatural element here in which a guy sells his soul to the Devil make a hit book. If you're a gothic person and like the darker shades that humor comes in, then you'll probably enjoy this book very much.

What I was not expecting going into this book was how much sex was involved. I mean, I suppose the subtitle "a dirty little fable" should have tipped me off, but it did not register. The protagonist's father who keeps talking about jerking off. The many different sex partners that the protagonist has. The Devil watching him do it from the corner of the bedroom. A lot of sex. Getting past the initial shock - not because I thought badly of Lyga for writing this, again I was just caught by surprise - it really did become simply another part of the story that became essential with how the character progresses through living without a soul. So, if you are uncomfortable with things like that, you may not want to download this.

Overall, I am very happy with this novel, and to me it is extremely cheap considering its worth, as far as I'm concerned. ( )