You know what it is? i love this author. He is infinitely intelligent and humorous. He has an outstanding understanding of the human condition. I loved his book "a fraction of the whole" and in 2022 so far it has been the best I have read. I have not read the third book he's written. But this his latest book has its moments but is overall a bit of a fail. I think the characters are the problem. You never feel sorry for them. This book is much like a 3PM film you watch on cable where characters in after-life are going through the motions. It has little literary stature and is overall a bit fluff and too dark humoured (Actually) for me to take seriously. The idea and some scenes are truly hilarious but overall not the kind of hilarious which will make you laugh. Nowhere near the captivity and stunting of "fraction of the whole"

I dont regret reading it but I would never recommend you this unless you are curious.

“(Not)The Good Place”
You may only live twice, but what happens to the Afterlife when everybody dies at once?

In this post- yet simultaneously mid-pandemic comic novel, by Steve Toltz, set not that far in the future, inevitability has begun to sink in.

A knock on the door from an uninvited stranger sets off a chain of events. When Angus Mooney, himself no saint, dies on the brink of long-looked-for happiness, a victim of his own success in using social media, a remarkable menage a trois develops.

Thought provoking and very funny (at times uncomfortably so) throughout, I really enjoyed this book.

For me, this book was equal parts bonkers and deep & meaningful. And it can be read on either of those two levels or anywhere in between. Honestly, that does make perfect sense!
So... We meet Angus and Grace. Husband and wife, about to welcome their first, long awaited child. Angus is a bit of a character but is mostly reformed. But, whilst he is away, Grace answers the door to a man who claims he used to live in their house. Long story short - one which is best read and enjoyed as the author intends - and Angus is dead, leaving Grace with the man. We then follow Angus in the afterlife and Grace in the "real" world as there is a pandemic looming...
And that's all I am saying as you really need to discover all the shades of this book at the right times and places for maximum enjoyment. Suffice to say that the "afterlife" was nothing I was expecting it to be, although I did kinda like some elements...!
As already mentioned, this book can be deep at times but you really don't need to join in with the philosophical meaning of life stuff to enjoy what is at the heart of the book. There are so many cracking "life observations" to be found herein too. Ranging from the serious to the downright hilarious - and everything in between again! I especially loved Grace's career progression.
As for characters, well... all I can say without spoiling things is that I found them easy to connect to, both in a positive and negative way, and found them to be, within the genre, true to who they were purporting to be. Again, hard to explain without spoilers.
And the ending, when it came, was perfect. A wee bit on the predictable side, but satisfying nonetheless.
All in all, a cracking book that stayed with me a while post completion. In that respect it would make for a good club read. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Angus Mooney is not happy - he's been murdered, cut off in the prime of his life. He feels humiliated - he's never even believed in an afterlife. (How wrong he'd been). He's confused - death has provided more questions than answers. And he desperately misses his audacious and fiery wife, Gracie, who's expecting their first child.
The only upside is that Angus has found a way to see what his murderer is up to, and how Gracie is faring. The downside: Gracie and his murderer are getting uncomfortably close, and a worldwide pandemic means the afterlife is about to get very crowded . . Addicted to this book… As soon as I started to read, I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to put the book down… One hell of a rollercoaster ride.

Angus Mooney, professional drifter and small-time criminal seems to have finally landed on the shores of relationship bliss with Gracie, his wife. She’s even expecting after a long, financially-draining fertility battle. Just at this seemingly perfect moment, Angus dies and finds himself in a nightmarish dystopian afterlife, a concept he had rigorously denied to exist (“And, my crucial mistake: I thought that the afterlife was for those who couldn’t abide ultimatums.”)
It’s full of kooky philosophy and aphorisms and clever asides, but sadly left me not caring about any of the characters or the dystopian images of afterlife. Should be listed under Fantasy.
FWIW, I found the original cover image (the one for the excerpt) far better than the current one which looks like a generic whodunnit cover.

'Here Goes Nothing' is the funniest and zaniest book I have read in a long time. There aren't many writers who could combine murder, speculative fiction, fantasy and humour but Steve Toltz succeeds and produces a novel that is insanely readable and compelling to boot.

The novel unfolds in the post-Covid near future when another deadlier zoonotic virus is on the horizon. Our narrator is Angus Mooney, a reformed petty criminal who has become a wedding videographer and expectant father, married to Gracie, a hilariously unorthodox wedding celebrant who harangues her couples with advice like "In marriage it is survival of the deafest, okay?" and "A wedding is like a tetanus shot. Later, when a wound is infected, you'll discover the immunisation was only good for five years." Angus talks to us from beyond the grave, having been murdered by their lodger, Dr. Owen Fogel, a dying man who turns up at their house one day claiming it was his childhood home and requesting that he be allowed to die there.

Angus is a confirmed rationalist so is somewhat surprised to find himself in an afterlife, albeit one which is "almost titillating" in its banality. Toltz's world-building here is excellent - God remains invisible and the world he conjures is exactly the sort of bureaucracy that humans would end up creating if they found themselves in charge in a future life. Death gives Angus none of the answers he is longing for and instead he finds himself required to work in an umbrella factory, before being transferred to construction to deal with the impending refugee crisis caused by the virus back on Earth.

Ultimately he does find a way to re-connect with Gracie and his posthumous daughter, but this is not without complications as Gracie and Owen have ended up getting much closer since Angus's death - as Angus wryly remarks, "Love triangles are bad enough when everyone's alive." Meanwhile, Owen's condition is deteriorating and the virus looms ever closer.

This is such a virtuosically entertaining romp of a novel, although it does go to some fairly dark places, and certain sections are not for the faint-hearted (one character performing an emergency C-section on herself whilst live-streaming her birth to thousands of online followers springs to mind!) Thanks to Steve Toltz for the ride, and to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to read!

Exploration of the afterlife - when a stranger named Owen asks to die in their house (& promises them an inheritance) Grace and Angus agree only for the stranger to murder Angus. So begins Angus's exploration of the afterlife and his attempts to visit Grace and haunt Owen. As a plague sweeps the planet how will this then impact those already on the other side.? Entertaining comic romp.

This book is so clever. It's unique and one of a kind, I loved the writing style and the storyline. Really enjoyable and I couldn't put it down.

In this book we meet Angus Mooney who is completely unhappy, he had been murdered, cut down in the prime of his life. He never believed in the after life but how completely wrong was he! He wants to know what happened. However his wife Gracie who is expecting their first child is getting really close to the person who killed him and it is up to Angus to keep her safe.

This was such an intriguing read and I was completely gripped. I couldn't put it down it was twisty, unpredictable and relatable. I read this in one sitting I couldn't put it down.