Supermarket

Publisher's Summary

The stunning debut novel from one of the most creative artists of our generation, Bobby Hall, aka Logic. Bobby Hall’s stellar narration is accompanied by music he performed specifically for this story.  

“Bobby Hall has crafted a mind-bending first novel, with prose that is just as fierce and moving as his lyrics. Supermarket is like Naked Lunch meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - if they met at Fight Club.” (Ernest Cline, number one New York Times best-selling author of Ready Player One) 

Flynn is stuck - depressed, recently dumped, and living at his mom’s house. The supermarket was supposed to change all that. An ordinary job and a steady check. Work isn’t work when it’s saving you from yourself. But things aren’t quite as they seem in these aisles. Arriving to work one day to a crime scene, Flynn’s world collapses as the secrets of his tortured mind are revealed. And Flynn doesn’t want to go looking for answers at the supermarket. Because something there seems to be looking for him. 

A darkly funny psychological thriller, Supermarket is a gripping exploration into madness and creativity. Who knew you could find sex, drugs, and murder all in aisle nine?  

©2019 Bobby Hall (P)2019 Simon & Schuster

What a great performance!

I loved this audible so much and so did my kids! We would listen to it in the car on our way to and from school and we were all hooked! They would yell as the left the car “don’t listen until we get in the car!” Great work Sir!

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

10/10

just finished. definitely worth the read if you are interested 10/10 stars from me. congratulations Bob

12 of 14 people found this review helpful

HOLY SHIT

I finished this book in two day and loved it, a total must read. It completely blew my mind and it was worth every minute. the narration was both light and emotional. Bobby Hall did a wonderful job of truly creating a vivid world to experience.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Predictable

This book was an entertaining enough listen, but the main plot points are very predictable and border on derivative

10 of 12 people found this review helpful

Disappointed

I have no idea how this book has such good reviews. There were no twists and turns and super predictable. This book is like if a high schooler ripped off fight club

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Fantastic read.

Just entering my twenties, battling depression and anxiety, a lover of all art and music, filled with pure adoration for a creative mind like Logic— Bobby. Incredibly proud and excited to have someone to look up to like him. Absolutely loved the book and I’m hyped to see what’s in store for him next. Give it a read!

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Too safe for someone like Bobby; disappointing

I picked this up because I like Logic, but this leaves a lot to be desired. There were a lot of moments that were clearly just Logic jumping on a soapbox to talk about things he likes talking about, regardless of whether it had a place in the plot. There's a lot of pointless name-dropping of artists, novels, and other pieces of pop culture that makes it hard to take it seriously as it's own piece of work. There are some bright moments of prose, the premise is interesting, and I think there's some promise here in Bobby as an author, but I really struggled to finish it.

The whole thing felt very amateur. Going in, I realize that he's actually is a freshman author and that you should go in expecting some degree of amateurism, very few authors publish a debut novel that feels completely polished and professional, In light of that, I tried to be incredibly generous about it as I read, and I tried to find things I liked about it. And I found them; but there aren't nearly enough of them to make this worthwhile for me. It relies a lot on tropes, cliches, pop-culture references, and forced, unnecessary fourth-wall breaks that weren't particularly clever or valuable. The plot felt like a fanfic of Fight Club.

I really hope Bobby keeps writing, and I hope he moves a bit further away from the creative well he draws on for his music. Having listened to most of his music and having been to a few shows made it much harder to feel like much of this was very original. Lots of details, references, and ideas could easily be traced to this song, or that interview, that they really felt like recycled ideas. He says in the acknowledgements that the first part of this was written a while ago, in a difficult time for him, so it makes sense that he writes about what was happening at that time in both his music and in writing; it's not his fault that those pieces of media were released at different times. But even then, you'd hope to see a bit more evolution in those ideas in light of his lived experience. The story is about an aspiring author struggling on his first book, and knowing that Logic was also an aspiring author working on his first book was all a bit too on-the-nose for me. I can't think of any safer creative territory than 1) your life and character as it is now, and 2) messages that you've already delivered in other creative media, and this book leans entirely on both of those. I think Logic is very creatively gifted, which is why it was especially disappointing to see him stick to things that are clearly very comfortable ideas and topics for him. I hope these glowing reviews from people that are clearly die-hard fans of Bobby as a person don't encourage him to stay on this comfortable track.

The audiobook version is really good, there's some really clever and creative use of the medium in the form of using the soundtrack, sound-effects, and vocal inflection. Making a soundtrack for a book is a really interesting idea, it works well, and it's stuff like that that makes me feel like Bobby can really make some interesting, fresh literary work someday. I just think this isn't quite it.

18 of 24 people found this review helpful

The Best Book I've Ever Read

Bobby Hall a.k.a. Logic has tremendous talent when it comes to writing. This story has that feeling when you know you are getting close to the end and you don't want it to end. You think to yourself, "I wish Bobby had more books out!". The story itself is incredible. It helps to relate to so many people on many different levels. Bobby Hall reading the book to you is like a dream come true. You can tell he is proud of his book and he knows exactly what his characters would be like. The book is 6 hours and 34 minutes which is my only complaint. I WISH IT WAS LONGER. I could listen to Bobby Hall telling a story for the rest of my life and I would not be bored. The book did not have one boring part in it. I felt like something new was happening every line. Overall the book is an amazing, comedic treasure, that has so many important meanings in it.

6 of 8 people found this review helpful

Amazing

Bobby usually makes music and not a lot of people have the talent to make music and other thing. But i had no doubt Bobby couldn't do this! the book is funny, smart, and just a splash of darkness. making it the best Dark Humor book to date

8 of 11 people found this review helpful

Interesting book, but predictable

I really wanted to love this book, but found it very easy to stop listening to in order to do other things versus it being hard to stop. I would say everything about the story was decent, but that's really about it, just decent. The characters were alright, story was average, and the performance was good.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful