Hell of a Book by Jason Mott is a captivating and thought-provoking novel that explores the power of storytelling, the impact of racism, and the blurred lines between fiction and reality.

The title fit the book. I wasn’t sure exactly what genre this would fall into even after finishing. I struggled a bit with the last half but enjoyed the ending when we got there.

Not a Hell of a Book for me, but a hell of a tricky book to review.

There's lots to commend here - originality, creativity and a lot of humour, considering the main focus is really the shooting of Black Americans by cops.

I thought the book started really strongly, but as it went on the style became a little tiring for me. It felt a bit self-consciously Vonnegut-esque (Vonnegutian?) and the dips in and out of magical realism just left me hoping for a more straight-forward telling of the story.

But I suspect the problem was a mismatch between me and the style. Lots of you will love this and the writer is clearly very talented.

I persevered with this book but I just found it too confusing. Maybe I’m not getting it, I kept getting lost in time

This is a Hell of a Book. It’s profound and deep and batshit crazy at the same time. I’m not entirely sure what happened, what was real, what was imagined, but it was a hell of a ride.

I listened to the audio version and at first thought what have I purchased here, this isn’t my thing at all. An entitled drunk guy running down a hotel corridor, away from a man who’s just caught him in bed with his wife. But if you can persevere and get through the first few chapters you’ll make it to clever writing that’s actually quite important. Essentially one man’s ruminations on what it means to be black in America, at times it made me stop in my tracks and really consider the state of the world we live in. There’s no white guilt forced in it, but it made me feel awful for not spending longer on thinking about it before.

The narrators are excellent and though I was irritated by the main character at the start, my opinion had completely changed by the end of the book. I loved the fact that we never learned his name, nor the name of the boy, which is a pretty deep and sobering point in itself. They could both be anyone you might have heard of, or not, in newspapers, and would usually be statistics that you just passed on by. But the way in which this unfolds make you re-examine that and makes you wish for a better world.

All in all it’s difficult to describe this book and do it justice. Although it left me feeling a little confused and spacy, I’m glad I read it and think it’s a very clever piece of art. I’d recommend it with the caveat prepare to have your head messed with - but maybe that’s exactly the point? Maybe we shouldn’t all be just floating along as if everything’s ok when really it’s so far from that, and we all have a responsibility to do something about it. Start with this book and have your eyes opened.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion (Trapeze) for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of a couple of books I’ve read recently that just didn’t land with me, and I feel like a real shit for saying that. Especially because I loved the first third of this book. The dialogue in particular was whip-smart, like a Marx brothers film. I was immediately taken in by Soot’s story. But then… things got a bit meta, a bit weird, a bit kooky and I kind of lost the thread of it all. Maybe I need to try again one day, but for now, this wasn’t the one for me.

Oh dear. I was supremely unimpressed with this book. I didn't like the writing style and I didn't like what he was writing. The book surrounds a character who (through bouts of drinking and self-congratulating, is on a book tour to promote his wonderful book. Interspersed is a black child who is apparently able to make himself invisible at will.

Sorry, this one is not for me. I ploughed through about a third of it, and just could not carry on. Nothing had happened. Its very rare for me to not complete a book, but this one defeated me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this new novel.

This was not what I thought it would be and I should have read more about it before I asked for an arc. I apologize!

“Hell of a book” features a first time author, currently on a book tour for his novel “Hell of a book”. The author meets a young black boy who he calls “the kid” The kid wants to be seen yet only the author can see him. He pops up around the author’s book tour and it’s up to the author to establish why.

This book had a lot going for it - an original premise, Mott has a brilliant turn of phrase which drew me in and made me laugh, for example when he calls an old man a “nice enough collection of wrinkles”.
It’s a book that draws on your emotions too, illustrating the plague of disgusting racism experienced by the black people in America.

Any yet the writing style meant I couldn’t finish the book - it was all over the place and alienating to read when the author is constantly reminding the reader that any of what he tells them might have only happened in his imagination. It became to ambiguous and frustrating.

It could have been an amazing book and it certainly has an incredibly important message - but that is lost in translation by the style the writer used.

Thank you to the author, Orion and Netgalley for the opportunity to review an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest opinion.

A blend of reality, fantasy, imagination and I really don't know what! Confusing to get your head round, who is The Kid? Is he Soot? Are they the author? By never giving a name to the author, the point is more clearly made that these characters could be anyone to whom the book applies. And it clearly points to current day police shooting of black men in America. I found it very disturbing especially as I'd heard stories of random stop and searches of young people in the UK that same day. At times amusing, the subject matter couldn't help but affect me as I was reading it, and it will remain with me long after I have finished the book. #netgalley #hellofabook

Hell of a Book is a story that mixes reality with absurdist fantasy and explores profound themes such as love, friendship, grief, loss, trauma, wisdom, hope and the fraught experiences of ethnic minorities, in particular African Americans, in the United States. We are introduced to an enigmatic unnamed protagonist and what we do know about him is he's an author. He moves from airport to bookshop to chain hotel, on tour for his new bestseller HELL OF A BOOK. And, as people keep telling him, it's a hell of a book. Some of these people may or may not be real - because the other thing to know about him is he has, let's say, an overactive imagination. For example, only he can see The Kid: a young black boy, who may or may not be the young black boy on the news recently. The one who was shot by the police. The one who everyone is on the streets protesting about. Or he might be any of the others. He may be all of them or none of them. That may or may not be important. He may even be our author telling us this story. And all of this may or may not be happening. Every. Single. Day.

This is a compulsive and truly original novel that aims to get to the heart of racism and the hidden costs exacted on Black Americans. It's both timely and timeless and a heart-breaking and mind-expanding journey that encapsulates better than anything I have ever read the absurd experience of being a minority in a country that hates the fact of your existence. This book is wincingly funny, filthy, raw, sad, mad, stylish, cynical, hopeful, tragic and everything in-between. It contains poetic rants that will have you punching the air in solidarity and other scenes that are almost too painful to process. This is a career-defining book that has the power to do for race what Catch-22 did for war. Sprawling but still retaining its intimacy, it forgoes realism and verisimilitude in favour of evocative richness and empathy. It's surreal and uses snappy prose to draw you in; it's a "sociological investigation," a psychological character study of a protagonist attempting to navigate a corrupt world and a valid contribution to America’s ongoing conversations on race, identity and healing. Highly recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. It’s not your standard type of book and it won’t be to everyone’s taste. Interesting premise and good writing but not quite as engaging as I originally expected. I stuck with it to the end and I am glad I read it but I think some might find the humour jarring!

This book felt a little confused for me. It wasn’t the format I usually read but it was a very interesting concept.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for gifting me this arc in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Genre: Adult Fiction | Surrealist Fiction

Release Date: Expected 10th August 2021

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group | Trapeze

CW: Intense racial language, bullying, guns, violence, police brutality, swearing.



It's time for the book tour of 'HELL OF A BOOK', which the Author has been told before really is a hell of a book. But once he meets The Kid, who looks just like the young black boy on the news that was shot by the police recently, the Author has a nw story to tell.

Now, he has to tell a sad story. The story of a boy who could be a halluination, or a ghost, or a memory. Or nobody at all. A boy who has tried for his whole life to learn the impossible trick of invisibility. A story that feels all too familiar to the Author.



Our story begins with our nameless Author being naked as a jaybird in a hotel hallway, and the rollercoaster just keeps spiraling from there. Told in such a unique, surreal voice, you don't realise you're in a serious discussion with the Author until the fog clears away momentarily. Jumping times, places and thoughts, this book took some concentration but one you'd settled in and accepted nothing it as it seems it was all too easy to read until the pages run out.

This was a love story, and sometimes it was a story about family, sometimes about writing, sometimes about sanity itself. Deeply unsettling and raw, the Author and the Kid have no names but give voices to the voiceless - to victims of police brutality, racism and hatred that countless people face but still isn't talked about. This story forces you to think about the world you see, and the world you don't, but more importantly how the world is going to be if you leave it.

Blending harsh reality with dream-like absurdity, Mott has created something altogether intruiging and unforgettable. Almost impossible to explain or categorise, but it was definitely a hell of a book.



RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to Jason Mott, Orion and Netgalley for this ARC in return for an honest review.

Hell of a Book is a novel about, well, it's a novel about an author on a book tour for his new book, which everyone agrees is a hell of a book, but he's not quite sure what it's about or if all the people are real. Only he can see The Kid, a Black boy who might be the one recently shot by the police, or might not be, but as the interviews pile up and he sees The Kid more and more, maybe he'll have to work out just which stories are being told.

This is a difficult book to talk about without giving away too much, as a lot of it is built around narrative uncertainty and what the narrator says or doesn't say at any one point. It's an innovative style which is used to play with the reader whilst also addressing issues of race, police brutality, and which stories Black creatives are encouraged to tell (or told is marketable). At times it is absurd and funny, at other times unreal and clever, and then it is also powerful and sad, a sign of how stories keep repeating and cycles keep being perpetuated.

The style of this book might not be for everyone, but I found it incisive and witty, and a clever way to ask questions about the publishing industry itself whilst also looking at existing in America whilst Black. I'm not going to end my review with an obvious play on the title, but instead I'll think about the fact that the way the title is used throughout the book does feel like a comment on how it might be described by people who haven't really read it in the future, as it is undoubtedly a book that is going to be talked about.

I have conflicting feelings towards this book,that make it hard to judge how much I really liked it.
There were times it amused me,followed soon after by times I could tell it was being funny,but I didnt find it so.
Times I was a bit lost,and times I really felt for the characters.
So,I'll give it three stars.
I'm glad I read it,as I think it's going to be talked about a lot,but I'm not sure I'd be recommending it enthusiastically.