Keanu Reeves

The book all my friends are reading but no one is raving about.
The book whose title looks like a red state personalized license plate.
The book written by Keanu Reeves and starring Keanu Reeves as Keanun the Barbarian.

Frankly, I was won over the second the sad Keanu meme showed up on the first page.

Immortal Keanun -- oh, wait, make that immortal Unute has spent thousands of years slaughtering people. He continues to do the same in the present day as "Subject B" with much blood, gore (so show more much brain matter splattering about!), and brooding. Such a sad Keanu! But scientists are supposedly helping him between bloodbaths to recover memories (so many, so sad, so bloody) and determine how he could claim the mortality he desires.

If you liked John Wick or just like watching Keanu hanging out, I think you'll enjoy this well enough. I did. show less

Yeah, this one's a hard no.

Now, I've read every single issue of the BRZRKR comic series that this book is based on, and I catch the references. And no, no one will ever mistake any issue of that series as Important Literature. But the comic has two things going for it that are completely missing here.

The first is, the series tells a story and for the most part, it's clear and understandable. The second is, the series is written well. Not overwritten, not underwritten. Not fantastic, but not show more terrible.

This book though? I have no idea how much—if any—input Reeves had in it, and I do get the impression they wanted to both broaden and deepen the mythos of Unute (aka B) which isn't a bad thing. But—and again, I'm guessing here, but I'm guessing China Miéville is the sole writer—the various narrative voices in this book, because we're literally bouncing from narrator to narrator, is both confusing as hell, as well as terribly written.

I tried, because I'm a fan of the comic. I really tried.

But with every book that ultimately ends up a DNF, there's a point where I stop reading and just ask myself, "do I care what happens next? Have I cared at any point in this story?" And if the answers are "no" to both, as they were with this book, I stop reading.

But you know what? Typically, I still usually keep the book, or donate it. This one? This one's getting returned for a refund.

No rating, because of the DNF. show less

NOTE: I am a librarian and I received a free ebook copy of this book from NetGalley.

I am a huge Keanu Reeves fan. Like, HUGE. Naturally I snapped up his debut novel as soon as I could! That said, Keanu's first foray into prose fiction isn't perfect, but still a commendable effort, helped along by the literary talents of coauthor China Miéville. Die-hard Reeves fans will recognize the basic story and characters from his previous project, the comic book series "BRZRKR." This novel expands show more upon the backstory, motivations, and themes of "BRZRKR," painting a picture of an immortal super-assassin whose history is just as conflicted as those of his antagonists.

I liked that this tale did not make any quick judgments about who was in the right or in the wrong, and explored the complex implications of what it means to live forever, as well as humanity's conflicted relationship with life and death. Much like Reeves' own persona, the entire novel is shrouded in an air of mystery; many chapters will come across as arcane or esoteric to general readers. I found the final third of the novel somewhat confusing, like there were too many loose ends to tie up at once. Yet there are moments of brilliance as well, namely in the flashback chapters whose titles allude to episodes in "The Canterbury Tales" and that depict encounters with Unute across history. My favorite episode was "water," a chapter written entirely in the second-person that could stand on its own as a short story. Reading that chapter made me long for an annotated critical edition of this book, in which passages penned by Reeves and passages penned by Miéville are clearly marked and identified.

Even though "The Book of Elsewhere" wasn't always my cup of tea, I always enjoy following Reeves' muse with all of his creative projects and I look forward to seeing what he has in store for us in the future. show less

BRZRKR asks the question, would it be cool if John Wick was Wolverine, but always in absolute Beast Mode without any nuance of characterisation beyond stoic, immortal, and brutal? The answer might suprise you...

Look, I love the John Wick films and pretty much everything Keanu Reeves is in. He seems a cool guy as far as Hollywood actors go. I enjoy some pretty brutal comics, video games, and books. When done well, I enjoy a bit of 'Bolter Porn', as a treat, between actually engaging Warhammer show more stories. I wanted to like this, but, quite, frankly this gets an extra star purely on the fact that it is isn't actively offensive and Reeves seems cool.

It's as if someone jammed Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed together, but rendered in Gears of War, and it reads like janky video game tie in comic.

It's a bloody mess in every sense of the phrase.

There are brutal and blood-filled comics out there with more than a saucer's depth and an A-list name attached, if that's what you're after. There's a series of Hercules comics that fit this bill with artwork I enjoyed more, but it's been a long time since I read them, so I make no call on how problematic and edgelord they might be. I think that's something funny about this, it's all blood, no anything else. It's not even edgelord. It's just dudes (especially Reeves) rock and paint everything red.

I truly wish I had anything positive I can say beyond, it's cool seeing people work on passion projects than they are actually passionate about, but it does just highlight just how much of a silly lie the supposed meritocracy we apparently live in.

The highlight of my experience was realising he's literally what if Violent J's character from this Insane Clown Posse song was a stocky John Wick: https://youtu.be/qkgKccKlu2g?si=0oBQK6yzGjvQ1pFb show less