I really wanted to like this book. The idea has promise, that of taking a fairly commonplace central story – guy with dead end job in what he feels is a town that stymies his creativity aspires to be a writer – and blowing out the walls by approaching it from conventional text, graphic novel, workshopped screenplay and multiple perspectives. But the reality is that it’s a thin story with no really interesting characters or fresh insights, especially on the encroachment of big box corporate concerns, which we all know suck the life out of small towns – but didn’t the author already think his town sucked?. The different stylistic renderings just feel like gratuitous padding and short attention span noodling. But I feel a bit insulted as a reader, because *I* don’t have a short attention span if he wants to try to stick with his story and explore it in more depth.

The well-illustrated graphic novel portions feel especially wasted because they look great, but add nothing to the story. Is the workshopped bit with the clueless handwritten edits supposed to draw the reader in on the joke, whatever that is? Yeah, I get it, but again it doesn’t add anything new to the central story.

Fiorentino can at least be commended, I suppose, for writing what he apparently knows. I’m not sure if I’m interested in checking back when/if he tries to legitimately stretch himself as a writer.