If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe

"It sounds like we biffed it so hard last time that we had to reboot the whole universe." (pg. 252)

For all that author Jason Pargin can deliver some downright disturbing content in his pages, there's something strangely comforting about the John and Dave stories. The artist formerly known as David Wong has now delivered four in this series, and each of them makes you laugh and chills you to the core – sometimes in the same paragraph, or even the same sentence. Each of them makes you care about the characters, both old and new, and manages to keep their loopy plotlines from spinning out of control. Each of them carries an underlying message (here, about the compulsive and corrupting aspects of smartphones and social media) without show more getting preachy about it, or forgetting that it's first and foremost an adventure story with dick jokes.

Despite its interdimensional parasites, dystopian torture and explosive gore, reading If This Book Exists is a joyous read. I settled into its grooves just as easily as I had in 2017 and 2012, when reading the first three books in the John and Dave series, confident that Wong/Pargin could take me on a trip. And so he did: we're back in the town of Undisclosed, following our hapless "group consisting mostly of drowsy idiots" (pg. 259) as they try to save the world (with a minimum of effort) from a litany of strange and stupid Lovecraftian horrors.

Where other books of this type might be try-hard in their wackiness or over-earnest in their 'found family' characterisation, the John and Dave series gets the balance just right. It's genuinely disturbing and genuinely hilarious, and the author has the discipline that is, paradoxically, so necessary when writing something so outlandish. There's a meticulous creativity behind the story that allows it to flourish; to give one minor example that might otherwise have gone unheralded, there's a throwaway joke on page 282, concerning coffee on the roof of a car, that was seeded much earlier (on pp64-5). It's an insignificant moment, but shows the care the author has put into the story. Pargin earns our trust and doesn't squander it: the John and Dave books are high-quality fun, as though Stranger Things was a stoner comedy. When so much of entertainment nowadays is shallow disappointment, or requires you to meet the creator halfway, or to ignore some flaw that is staring you in the face, to be able to fall so completely into an author's peculiar orbit with such confidence is a real treat. show less

Fourth book in the series and just as gonzo. A horrible force from outside our dimension is getting people to summon it via a kid’s toy, turning virtual feeding times into times to feed it very real human parts. But the real fun is the narration, which is entirely fearless and willing to skip to the good parts or even past some things I’d really like to have seen to make the point about how out-of-control and marginally competent these folks are. Also, Dave gets a little closer to embracing his true nature, I guess? Comparing it to another, less weird ordinary-schlubs-fight-horror book I read at the same time, it’s clear that Pargin’s willingness to try anything serves him well here.

This is the fourth book in the series of comedy/horror novels that started with John Dies at the End, and the first Justin Pargin published under his own name (having, I believe, come to the conclusion that a white guy using an Asian pseudonym isn't super cool, even if he did adopt it for innocent reasons). If you've read the previous volumes, you probably know more or less what you're in for here, although I think maybe it does see the characters... well, I hesitate to say "maturing a little," because "mature" is not remotely the word you want to use for these people. But something like that, anyway. And if you haven't read the previous volumes, this one can be read on its own. There may be a couple of points that'll be a little show more confusing, but as the author himself notes in the afterword, having read the rest of the series is probably not actually going to make anything significantly less confusing. And that's okay! The confusing weirdness is part of the fun. And it is fun. Weird, and wacky, irreverent and sarcastic, and wild and fun, with some glimpses of thoughtfulness and heart beneath it all. Also, brain-hurting time travel, haunted toys, nihilistic teen nerds, and a monster made out of hair and tongues. show less

Pargin’s most accessible and comprehensible book to date. Which is saying something because this one involves time travel and causality loops.

Usually these stories are pretty ADHD, bouncing from one strange thing to another without a connection to anything. It feels like Pargin started taking medication during the writing of this book.

But make no mistake, it hasn’t hindered his ability. It’s still a genre-busting horror-comedy with equal parts humor and gore. Like if Kevin Smith wrote The Evil Dead.

This book is the fourth in a series with a label that has been expanding in a failed effort to keep pace with its central cast of characters. The original volume was John Dies at the End. Later books/editions were called "John and Dave" books, adding the name of principal narrator David Wong--an in-story pseudonym and also the pen name later abandoned by author Jason Pargin. If This Book Exists... is tagged a "John, Dave and Amy" book, including a character who has been central for previous volumes, but there is a fourth who earns poster placement rights in this installment.

Anyhow, the series consists of supernatural horror with a little science fiction, a lot of lowbrow humor, and a fair amount of unsubtle but essentially humane social show more commentary. I felt like this book had the most conventional plot arc of the four, despite overt courting of time travel paradoxes and multiple denouements. It didn't make me laugh out loud as often as the earlier ones, but I experienced more odd synchronicities while reading it, which was a definite point in its favor.

There's an evil cult to thwart in the course of the novel, and the very end (before the author's afterword) supplies the key commandments that Dave and his pals add to the cult's scriptures to keep them from becoming a pernicious world religion. These few pages really could stand the frank consideration of earnest "seekers," even out of context. show less

When I first started If You’re Reading this Book, You’re in the Wrong Universe by Jason Pargin aka David Wong I had no idea what to expect but all I can say after finishing it is...whoa, what a ride! Or to quote the title of another book in the series What Did I Just Read! This is the fourth book in the series but the first I’ve read and I’m wondering now why it took me so long to discover this series because I loved every weird and creepy word of it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

Wonderful. This is from a series and it didn't really hit until halfway through the book. And it was good enough that I just kept going. All it did was make me want to go read the others, one of which I had wanted to read anyway.