Balls Jr. #9: The Stupidest Angel - Christopher Moore

"You can't just say 'retarded' in public like that--people take offense because, you know, many of them are."

Chris, I will always have a place in my empty shell of a heart for you for Lamb, but The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror, despite a smashing name and a smashing Author's Warning*, is not going to enlarge that spot. It was very inconsistent, felt unsatisfying and insubstantial, and overall, despite some great lines and characters, failed to win me over.

Dale Pearson is an "evil developer," evilly buying ice and refusing to throw some money into his ex-wife Lena's Salvation Army kettle. I am extremely not in love with his set-up. He's "evil," cheated on his wife, has no hesitation about using physical violence to get Lena to stop annoying him, and soon comes after her with a gun. [EARLY, NOT REALLY SPOILER] And he just so happens to lose his balance while trying to shoot her, so that he, whoops!, falls neck-first on her shovel. How convenient. He's too one-dimensional. The only reason we might have for sympathy is that somebody is stealing his trees, but even that we can't be mad about, because Lena is a "Robin Hood" of Christmas trees. So then we're supposed to root for her, and a stranger who only wants to fuck her, while they dispose of evidence and bury the body. [/NOT REALLY SPOILER]

I'm not sure why I bothered with spoiler tags there, because it happens in the beginning of the book and provides the foundation for the rest of the plot and Moore spoils it himself. Raziel, who was also in Lamb, comes to Pine Cove to find a boy and grant him his Christmas wish. See, the boy witnessed the death of Dale Pearson while he was in a Santa costume, so he prays that Christmas will be all better and Santa will be fine. Raziel is stupid, as per the title, and he accidentally raises Dale and every other corpse rotting away in the cemetary, and it's zombie time! The zombie time is actually rather limited, and most of the time is spent on Lena and Tucker falling in lurrrve, and that's gross. I did not care about any of the myriad romances or quasi-romances, whether it be Lena and pilot, sheriff and crazypants, scientist and snob, and the ending was a cop-out.

The humor was violently up-and-down. I'd laugh out loud at one line, and roll my eyes at the very next sentence. I loved Skinner, and Roberto the Fruitbat, and Raziel. The zombies were also pretty funny. If you really want zombies, though, I'd go with Zombieland. It's a movie, not a book, yes, but it is also better.

*"If you're buying this book as a gift for your grandma or a kid, you should be aware that it contains cusswords as well as tasteful depictions of cannibalism and people in their forties having sex. Don't blame me. I told you."