Quirky, Enjoyable and Highly Original

A fun and unpredictable story, as seen from the perspective of the most minor players. Highly original and intensely entertaining,
The story begins to fall apart at the very end when the author seems to have gotten bored with it. But overall, it was a very enjoyable story.

Highly recommend.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Not Bad

Not Yahtzee's best work, but fun none the less. extra words, extra words, extra words, extra words.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

The Worst Of The Best

Yahtzee is without a doubt one of my favourite authors, I've enjoyed all of his work from his books, to ZP & Extra Punctuation. Of his books though this is undeniably his weakest work. The characters don't pop like the ones in Mogworld nor are they as engaging as the ones in Will Save the Galaxy For Food, Differently Morphous, Will Destroy The Galaxy For Cash or Existentially Challenged. His narration to is more monotone than in them which can make it a bit of chore to get through the first chapter, both in audio & paperback form.
But it is still enjoyable. He took the concept of flesh eating jam terrorising Brisbane & made it work, the humour is still spot on with his usual wit & there are some great straight up horror vibes. There is a reason his work is the primary inspiration for the book I'm currently working on.
If Yahtzee's other books are all 8's, 9's & 10/10's; then Jam is easily a 7/10.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

Croshaw ruins his own book

I generally love Croshaw's writing and narration, but his narration of Jam really let's the whole work down. The premise of Jam is inherently silly, so the story is, of course, also silly. No problem. It's a fun and funny concept. Also, Croshaw's characters are often flawed, insecure, and intentionally mildly irritating, also no problem.

But the way the Croshaw reads the characters and dialogue in Jam makes them completely intolerable. Snivelling, petulant, whinging, pathetic, frustrating. Everything, every line of dialogue, is delivered with a nasal rising inflection, whinging and grating and undermining the characters in completely unnecessary ways.

This book is only for Croshaw's most dedicated fans. I strongly recommend just reading the book yourself, you'll enjoy it much more. Sadly, Croshaw ruined his own book here.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Not great

The big killer is just how bland and unexciting Yahtzee's performance is. This is a guy who writes brilliantly clever and entertaining weekly game reviews for millions. It baffled me that he somehow delivered a narration that is the audio equivalent of microwave oats. I LOVED "will save the galaxy for food” and "will destroy the galaxy for cash" because of how engaged it got me.

His clever writing is all here but his heart isn't. I get it's a dark humour novel but... Why does he sound like he's reading his custody arrangements?

I was listening while driving and a good 10 minutes went by before I realised I didn't absorb anything he said. So instead of going back to re-listen I just switched to Spotify.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Its Yahtzee Chroshaw's humour

But some of the charaters can be very frustrating at times. The twists and overall still is reasonably. But not as fun a Differently Morpheus or Will Save the Galaxy for Food.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

Unique and quirky adventure

A fantasticly funny world with a charming set of characters.

I loved the plastic men society and there were a few pretty great little twists.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

The descriptions of characters

The level of detail that Yahtzee goes into to describe the characters in this book is so funny and how it goes about describing certain people. Highly recommend this book and all these other books.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Why having an editor is so important.

Look, it goes without saying that the work Yatzee produces are all bangers, and his previous narrations were perfect for the characters being portrayed. Unfortunately, this is a big deterrent from them. Cutting straight to the point, the big thing that took me away from enjoying this experience was the audio editing (or lack of). I’m unsure if Croshaw edited this himself or if someone from Audible was responsible for it, but whoever it was, they dropped the ball. Lack of pauses between dramatic moment or new chapters, too much pausing between characters talking, having Croshaw taking a deep breath in my ears or hearing his lips smacking in his one long take, all of it is just unprofessional. The worst offender came during the second last chapter, where the audience hears him do a second take, repeating the same sentence.

I don’t think any of us know what was going on behind the scenes, but I personally want to chalk this up as another casualty of 2020's staff shortages.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!