Island of the Sequened Love Nun by Christopher Moore

Island of the Sequined Love Nun
Christopher Moore

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Cover - these covers just trip.  They're like reading the comics.  they contain a tease of the story, and the artwork is good, comic style.  Short and Sweet - I love this cover.

**I read this waaayyy back in 2009.  This is one of those books that I forgot to review...(not being on any kind of schedule or time line....)**  

I totally enjoy Christopher Moore novels.  Some more than others, (of course ).  They are always multifaceted (I know me some big words), with quirky and twisted characters.  In Island of the Sequined Love Nun (I was SURE that sequined, should have been spelled with two n's - sequinned.  But apparently not.- useless bit of trivia for you)

The main character is Tucker Case, who had a job flying a plane for Mary Jean cosmetics (sound familiar?), a Pink plane (even more familiar?) and his story begins with a bang.  The book opens up with him hanging from a tree, and a 'native' standing there saying "yum".   Yup - he's crashed the pink plane.
oops.
If he lives through the next encounter (might be dinner, after all) he probably will out of a job.
oops.
Now Tucker is trying keep a step ahead of Mary's 'people', find work, and stay alive.  The book is full of Moore's characteristically zany characters - such as sexy priestess, a missionary man who happens to be a doctor, a talking fruit bat, and a ghost.  
With these character Moore manages to poke fun at body organ black market, cults, religion, huge pink cosmetic companies, alcoholics and yes - animals that talk.
Christopher Moore has a way with words - he can write satire, dark satire with great dialogue and fun plot twists.
I haven't yet read a Moore book that I didn't enjoy - some I like better than others, but I enjoy all of them.
I wasn't disappointed with Island of the Sequined Love Nun. You should read it.
You will chuckle - it's not slapstick book comedy, but the situations and plots are funny.  After finishing one of his novels, I'm always left with the yearning to buy more of his books.k  I haven't read all of them yet - mainly because they are ALL in either hardback form or trade ppb size which affects the price - of course. :)

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore - review

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

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Christopher Moore

Now these covers.....simple, understated yet gets the point across. This is a huge lizard, he looks hungry and yet there's something off about him....

A very long time ago, I bought an old paperback from a garage sale called Practical Demon-Keeping. It was a quirky book, funny and yet there was horror in it. This was during my historical romance reading era - so it was a fluke that I even picked up this book, but I remember laughing and enjoying it very much. And because this wasn't my usual type of book, after I was finished with it, I put it up and forgot about it. Since then I moved about three times, getting rid of books each time (to save my husband's poor back, all those books we packed, over and over) and have become bored with romance, and obsessed with urban fantasy, scifi and fantasy .

A few years ago, I found an older copy of Blood Sucking Fiends, and thought that was pretty good...then I thought "this guy is interesting, I wonder if he writes any other books"....so of course using the old handy computer, I started looking for this guy's books...and saw that he did write a few others..nothing really clicked though, so I just continued doing my normal thing...I came across You Suck and The Stupidest Angel about a year ago and just LOVED them...and then it occurred to me that something was kind of familiar...I looked at the list of books at the front of The Stupidest Angel..really LOOKED and lo and behold! there was Practical Demon Keeping listed. "Wow", I thought...."I used to have that book. I wonder what happened to it".....On our last move, while setting up my books, I happened to come across it. I still own it. One of these days, I'm going to re-read it. In the meantime, I've read a few others by Christopher Moore, such as Island of the Sequinned Love Nun (pretty good), and A Dirty Job. Each book has been interesting and funny, with just enough mayhem to keep one interested. The scenes of horror were mildly described - which sounds weird, but by that I mean even though a person was being eaten by a huge gigantic lizard, it wasn't described with lots of gore and ...crunchy descriptions...it was just stated. So you're not going to get nauseated reading about this (if you happen to have a sensitive stomach) unless you start to imagine and dwell on what's going on....

In Lust Lizard, Christopher Moore returns to the setting of this debut novel (Practical Demon Keeping) - Pine Cove. The town psychiatrist is feeling a little guilty over the death of one of her patients, so she decides to try an experiment - she's not sure that the antidepressents are all that, so she orders placebos for her patients....at the same time, a huge lizard like creatur awakens from a long slumber. This creature has quite a few abilities...one of which is to affect the lust of other creatures...so the combination of a sudden withdrawal from antidepressants, and signals from this lizard has quite a few of the residents of Pine Cove feeling pretty randy and out of control....Mayhem ensues. Love it.

One of my favorite characters from The Stupidest Angel is in this novel (actually this novel pre-dates The Stupidest Angel. Lust Lizard was written in 1995, Angel in 2004, Demon Keeping in 1992) - the crazed Molly Michon - former movie star of a series of B-Movies, Kendra- Warrior Babe of...etc. There is Theo, the pot smoking police constable...seen pretty much as a joke in Pine Cove. There is also Mavis, the owner of the town bar, who loves her booze and medications...and plastic surgery.

There is a lot more to this novel than the sudden lust of the withdrawing residents, and the crazed lizard...but that's spoilers. The flow of the book is great, I was interested the whole time. The dialogue between characters is also pretty good - I especially enjoy Molly's dialogs and interactions with not only other townies, but her own self. I loved her dialogs and interactions with not only the townies, but her own self. Her mind twists and turns in an amazing way. I think Christopher Moore did a fine job portraying her twisted reasonings and her mind's meanderings. He also did a fine job with a dog - Skinner, who was very frustrated trying to get his messages across to his owner (the Food Guy). Some of my favorite sections are with the Dog, or Molly.

The ending of this novel is seriously twisted - in a good way. Justice of a sort prevails. :) If you like your horror light with mayhem and humor, you're going to love this book. And the best part of this, is Christopher Moore has written quite a few books - most of which I've read and enjoyed quite a bit. Go Here, for a complete list of his novels.