Review of The Surreal Adventures of Anthony Zen

[Aastha Padubidre]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Surreal Adventures of Anthony Zen" by Cameron A. Straughan.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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After my reading of The Surreal Adventures of Anthony Zen, I would rate the book a 4/5.
The book was overall a fun read. I particularly enjoyed the author's sense of humour. The humour was not very obvious. It was subtle and required a bit of general knowledge to understand. The author mainly used satire and irony to convey this story of an eccentric man in his (very) strange world. One thought that did cross my mind while reading the book was that it was like a dream. Things happened without an explanation. Quite a few times, I had to read a sentence once again because the idea seemed just so unique and strange. The strangest occurrences were not questioned, yet the trivial things were. Certain parts of the storyline had no connect, which added to the surreal aspect. Almost everything in that world was the opposite of how it is in the real world. The story, at times, seemed like a commentary on the real world, which I appreciated. Certain issues were trivialised, but with that serious social issues were shed a light on. The story on the whole was oversimplified yet complex. A few chapters also seemed to give me the idea that the author was, in a way, making fun of the world around him, especially the workplace. Certain characters were a representation of an idea. They were quite literally whatever their name said they were, which I personally found witty. I also really enjoyed the book because it seemed like a representation of the author's mind.

That being said, I rated this book a 4 out of 5, because of one particular issue, that is the pacing. Although it is quite short, it does seem like the book drags on. It sometimes got quite boring because many ideas kept repeating. This may also be the reason I took quite a bit of time to finish the book. It is not an easy read, because the concepts in the book seem so eccentric. It takes quite a bit of time to get through the book.

I did find one spelling error, which was 'test your mettle' being written as 'test your metal'. Apart from this tiny error, the editing was excellent.

This book may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it certainly was mine.

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The Surreal Adventures of Anthony Zen
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