John Dies at the End

By: David Wong

Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne

Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

John Dies at the End is a genre-bending, humorous account of two college drop-outs inadvertently charged with saving their small town—and the world—from a host of supernatural and paranormal invasions.

Stop.

You should not have touched this flyer with your bare hands.

No, don’t put it down. It’s too late. They’re watching you.

My name is David Wong. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours. You may not want to know about the things you’ll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it’s too late. You touched the book. You’re in the game. You’re under the eye.

The only defense is knowledge. You need to read this book, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why? You just have to trust me.

The important thing is this: the drug is called Soy Sauce, and it gives users a window into another dimension. John and I never had the chance to say no. You still do.

I’m sorry to have involved you in this, I really am. But as you read about these terrible events and the very dark epoch the world is about to enter as a result, it is crucial you keep one thing in mind: none of this was my fault.

©2007 David Wong and Permuted Press. All rights reserved. (P)2011 BBC Audiobooks America

Brilliant and Fun

The story is a wild, fun, and crazy journey. Very well written and very well read. I wish there was more!

Hilarious

I love this book. It's outrageous, surprising, and comedy gold. The meandering absurdity of the story is an absolute masterpiece of comedy with scattered moments of true creepiness. And the few scenes of emotion and dark introspection are rendered that much more poignant in a sea of inept villainous monsters and fart jokes.

10/10 Have read again and again.

I Serve none but Korrok

love this book. i highly recommend it as well as the other titles in the JDATE series. I also quite liked his other book futuristic violence and fancy suite as well as his many articles on cracked.com.

Good but too long

I listened to this during a solo road trip, so I might have enjoyed it more than I would have otherwise.

I like the books sense of humor and overall weirdness, but it was too long. There is enough material for three books in here. The book tells three completely separate stories - they tie together but each could have been its own book. The paper version is 500 pages, way too long for a book like this.

I do plan on reading the sequel, or listening to it on the return trip.

Poor writing. Great story.

Before I bought this I read a review that said that it was full of immature humor. I figured it was someone in their fifties or sixties saying that so I, being a young 33, thought it would be perfect for me. It was super immature and just poorly written. But the story was great. I felt like I needed to know what happened next and I enjoyed it for the most part. There were just times when I wanted to slap the stupid out of the writer. "Stop ruining your story!"

So good

I cannot wait for his next book to come out later this year. two words

Dark, Witty, Weird

This book is the king of unreliable narration. Presumably, this book is about David and John, two friends in a Midwestern town who need to fight off evil forces when a new drug (soy sauce) opens a door to a parallel universe. Although it's clear that David exaggerates a good deal for the sake of story-telling, it is up to interpretation whether David and John are really kicking the EF from PU butt, or if they're hallucinating. Either way, it's a wild, crazy, and very humorous ride. The humor is very dark, dry, and sometimes witty. It was my favorite part of the book. The plot was fairly non-existent, though. The book was more about action and weirdness - the story was just too wild to actually have a coherent plot. During the middle of the book, I was starting to regret that it was so long because I'm more of a plot-driven than situational-driven reader. But I'm glad I hung in there, because I got some great laughs and may view the world a tiny bit differently after listening to this book.

You wouldn't think this book would lend itself well to audio format, but Stephen R. Thorne did an amazing job. His delivery of the dry humor and action was spot on. I'm happy that I took the risk on audio.

Delightfully Strange

Loved it!! Fantastically irreverent, seamlessly satirical, and utterly weird... It's hard to describe, but imagine Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and HP Lovecraft have a kid, and that kid hooks up w/ the movie Airplane and you'll sorta get it... If you like anyof the former, or the idea of the combination, you'll love the wit and juvenile humor, not to mention the poking fun at pop culture will have you chuckling along the way... If you're looking for something serious and/or deeply meaningful, or have any issue w/ dick jokes, then you should move along... It's just plain good silly fun w/ some perfectly acceptable gratuitous violence and gore thrown in...

The story keeps you interested

What did you love best about John Dies at the End?

Kept me interested in every chapter

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Felt like I was involved in the story

What about Stephen R. Thorne’s performance did you like?

A good performance by Stephen

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Had humor through out the story

An incredibly strange & fun story

I wasn't sure about this story until reading some of the other reviews. I'm glad a gave it a shot, it was totally worth the time!

Strangely unique, interesting characters & a narrator that made the listen enjoyable.