"The Show That Smells" Derek McCormack

I requested this book from minibookexpo.com because I was hoping that it would faintly resemble Christopher Moore's "A Dirty Job". Moore has a way of taking an unusual supernatural situation and making it funny. "The Show That Smells" had the potential to be like that: funny, quirky, and interesting, but it fell unfortunatly flat for me.

The plot: Jimmie, a country music singer, has tuberculosis and is dying. Carrie, his wife, will do anything to save him, including enslaving herself to Elsa, a fashion-designing vampire who wants to use Carrie as a model in her upcoming show revolving around circus freaks. Add Coco Chanel and the Carter family into the mix and you have the recipe for a quirky book/play. Or not.

I just didn't love the book. It was super short. I read through it in about an hour. That in itself does not make for a bad book, but it contributed. The writing style was strange. I didn't know if it was supposed to be written like a play or a book, it seemed to switch back and forth. The whole thing takes place in the hall of mirrors at a carnival. It could have done with a venue change. Perhaps I just didn't get the book. Maybe it's just not my style. Whatever it was, this won't be something that I'll be reading again.

However, just because this was not MY kind of book does not mean that someone else may not enjoy it. Please check it out here. And on that note, if this sounds like something that you would be interested in reading, I would be happy to send you this copy. It's all about sharing the book love! The first person to leave a comment with their e-mail address will get it. Just because I didn't enjoy it doesn't mean that you won't!