The Insides
By: Jeremy P. Bushnell / Narrated By: RC Bray
Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
Either a genre mashup, or a story that tries tooo many things, sticks tooo much in there
“Muscular.”
That’s the word I always think of when I hear of Hemingway’s writing, and it rather sums up the writing and the narration for Jeremy P. Bushnell’s The Insides, as sparely narrated by R. C. Bray.
We have our foul-mouth protagonist, Ollie. It starts with her being an 18-year old street kid who is beguiled into learning magic, street magic, weird magic, and it immediately jumps to much later when she’s hovering in her early thirties and working as a quick, knife-wielding butcher for a place called “Carnage.” She has a friendly, tho’ often bitter, rivalry with a fellow butcher, and she wonders if maybe, just maybe it’s the guy’s knife that is… magic?
Turns out.. it IS… in a weird way that kinda doesn’t make sense compared to the way the story is structured. Which is probably why some reviewers called this book a mashup of genres. Cuz it’s weird, and the knife (No, seriously, it’s part of a sword, like, sooo odd) becomes this weird sort of Holy Grail object in what starts as an urban fantasy.
Then we have a bad guy going after it, killing whomever he pleases all whilst wearing a Pig mask, a Finder who increasingly reluctantly helps him; we have a surly and oft one-sided romance where Ollie is just rather an emotionless jerk; we have a place, “The Insides” that is actually where you can get from here to anywhere, get from now to whenever in time (But it really only crops up at the end and is never fully explained… ‘nother loose thread/missed opportunity), so we get THAT bit o’ near SciFi in with the fantasy.
It all seemed so clever when it was presented in the Publishers Summary but, when experienced, would really have been confusing… if I cared. As it was, RC Bray’s “muscular” no-nonsense narration (He manages to drone a bit. I know he’s a 5-star narrator, but…), Bushnell’s “muscular” writing of his profane protagonist, the flat characters? Really, I dozed off during some of the action-packed moments cuz I just didn’t care enough to keep abreast of Every. Single. Jumped track. Mashup Fashup, I was bored.
Still, I think a lot of people might be able to get past all that, or see through it, and they’ll find it to be odd and quirky. Ollie makes poor choices, she swears like a sailor when the story hits certain “wry” beats, and she could come to be viewed as lovable in her… flat… I-don’t-give-a-flying-F sort of way. Then too, the sidekicks are well-written (I would’ve loved to have THEM as main characters), so there’s that.
If you’re looking for… variety… this Halloween, look no further. And if ya don’t mind liberal use of the F word just kinda sorta thrown in there for… “hilarious” effect?
Oh for gosh sakes, just get the danged book already.
Me? I think I’m off to listen to Carrie.
So there’s that.
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