‘If you’re a dinosaur, all of your friends are dead. If you’re a pirate, all of your friends have scurvy. If you’re a tree, all of your friends are end tables. Each page of this laugh-out-loud illustrated humour book showcases the downside of being everything from a clown to a cassette tape to a zombie. Cute and dark all at once, this hilarious children’s book for adults teaches valuable lessons about life while exploring each cartoon character’s unique grievance and wide-eyed predicament. From the sock whose only friends have gone missing to the houseplant whose friends are being slowly killed by irresponsible plant owners (like you), All My Friends Are Dead presents a delightful primer for laughing at the inevitable’
‘Never before has the blurb of a book given away so much.’ – Me, just now
Before I begin, I have to admit that I fell afoul of the old cliché: ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’. I totally did. I thought that All My Friends Are Dead had a bitter yet whimsical charm that is right up my alley (metaphorically speaking of course, as I only have a garden and some inexplicably spiky hedges). Just look at his pan-faced expression!
But did I really love it? No. As I said, the blurb pretty much ruins the majority of the book (though admittedly, it is only very short) and I wasn’t particularly impressed by the content anyway- I actually think it is possible that the above blurb has a higher word count than the entire book, which has all the style of Dr. Seuss without the complexity. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what Monsen and John were attempting to do and it could have been brilliant if it hadn’t been dragged out to an unnatural length (relatively speaking) by what were essentially the same jokes with different illustrations. Is it wrong of me to think that is a little lazy in a book of 96 pages?
That aside, All My Friends Are Dead has an average rating of 4.3 out of 5 on Goodreads (where you can find all of our GU reviews, by the way) and some of it went viral on Tumblr so it obviously appeals to others, in spite of the repetition I couldn’t ignore. It isn’t a book I would highly recommend but it is very short so if you’re looking to fill a spare few minutes with a chuckle or two, you could give it a try.
Mark Brassington 