Supermarket

By: Bobby Hall

Narrated by: Bobby Hall

Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins

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

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.

10/10

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

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!

Predictable

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

Geez

I wanted to really like this book but after a few chapters I could not continue to listen. It had a few wonderful reviews, but why I don’t know. The guy who wrote it seems nice enough, and made a great narrator, but the story just didn’t make sense to me. Use your own judgement.

Worst audiobook so far

I listen to almost an audiobook a day and this was by far the worst. The narration was fine but the story....
1) The protagonist sounds like a self-important spoiled whiny teenage boy. I understand his struggles are very real but he was written so poorly I hated him with passion.
2) The “plot twist” was so obvious and on the nose, even I saw it coming from the beginning. And I’m the idiot that NEVER sees plot twists coming. Now in a good book that should not actually spoil the story but there were so many hints and nudges that it felt like the author felt so damn smug and awesome for creating this stupid plot twist.
3) The dialogs were so fake and stilted it hurt. Trying so damn hard to be cool that it was just creepy.

The only reason I finished this book is my own stubbornness. I can’t believe that this has a 5 star rating. I feel offended by how bad this book is, honestly...

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.

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

I liked the Epilogue

I feel bad writing a negative review, because I think the author is probably a likable guy who has gone through some rough times , but this one was definitely not for me.
If he wasn't already famous with connections, I can't imagine this would have been published or recorded. I am also surprised by the many great reviews, but maybe they were also from fans of " Logic ". I only know I didn't enjoy this book, and I was glad when it ended.

High school level, derivative writing

the only way I can explain how this thing even got published is that the writer is a popular rapper. if you're in the Reading Rainbow demographic, enjoy. Otherwise look elsewhere