Title: Universal Harvester

Author: John Darnielle

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 216

Rating: 3.5/5

I’m a big fan of Darnielle’s because he’s the lead singer and songwriter of The Mountain Goats, a band that I love. His lyricism is top drawer and he does a cracking job of sharing stories in just a couple of minutes, and so it’s always interesting to see what he does in a different format.

And I did enjoy this book, although perhaps not as much as I’d been expecting. It started off with a lot of promise and hooked me early on, but then it changed gears and the story headed off in a tangent. I was down with that, but I also can’t help wondering what might have happened if it had maintained its course.

I think the issue is that it begins seeming as though it’s going to be all about the story line, and then a third of the way through it changes to being all about character and setting. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, I guess it just wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

All in all though, if you like the Mountain Goats then you’re going to love this, and even general readers will like it. Good stuff!

Learn more about Universal Harvester.