February 26, 2016

A Whole Nother Story - by Dr. Cuthbert Soup

Strange, mysterious bad guys.  International super spies.  Sock puppets. Epic wads of bubble gum.  Dirt clods. Time machines.  A hairless dog that can sense danger, and finds many opportunities to use this skill.  A very odd narrator.  Such an odd list, but they can all be found within this strange and wonderful book.

Dr. Ethan Cheeseman and his children are truly exceptional, but they've got some problems.  For one, they are on the run, changing identities and homes more often than they can count, on the run from a wide variety of evildoers.  They are also missing their mother, but the details of that particular problem don't become clear until later in the story.  As the Cheesemans make their way across the country in search of the answer to their biggest problem (which can not be disclosed here), they meet an interesting cast of characters, all of which help to make this odd story a bit more zany.  Through it all, the cheeky and slightly ridiculous narrator, "Dr. Cuthbert Soup," gives all sorts of commentary to the reader.

This really is a silly book, but it is a lot of fun to read, and hard to put down.  The narrator thing is a bit like the books of Pseudonymous Bosch or Lemony Snicket, and makes the story even more interesting.  The second book, Another Whole Nother Story, is just as good if not better.

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