The Fiction Of Marlon by Marlon Pearson

Summary from Goodreads

A unique set of quirky short stories, told in a humorous style somewhere between Reader's Digest funny one-liners and Christopher Moore's laugh-out-loud novels.

My Review:

Run far as you can from the crazy world in The Fiction of Marlon, a collection of short stories from Marlon Pearson.

I've read many books that contained short stories before and have never enjoyed what I read.  I was hoping it would be different reading this book from Marlon Pearson, but unfortunately, it was the same as other books that were full of short stories.

I was expecting funny stories as the summary stated and yet, I didn't find one of them to be funny.  In fact, most were confusing and hard to follow along.  I ended up skimming through a majority of them, feeling like it was a chore to get through them.  There are times when you read short stories in a book and they seemed to be tied in with one another.  I didn't get that feeling with Pearson's stories and I don't know if there were supposed to be any connection or not.  I didn't feel like they made any sense and believe me, none of these stories made me laugh out loud as I read them.  Where was the funny?  Is Pearson's humor different than most that one had to look deep to find?  It's possible and in that case, if one had to do that then it took away from the reading.

One particular part that really confused me was Have You Ever?  When I saw that was a section in the contents, it gave me hope.  I thought those would be stories that would have me thinking and may even have some answers to give.  I'd never been so wrong before.  I have absolutely no idea what Pearson was trying to get at with them, but it wasn't any questions I ever saw myself answer or ever thinking of before.  The more I read, the more loss I was in reading these stories, and not in a good way.  It was in the sense of I had no idea what was going on.

My favorite story from the book had to be Founders Hall in 1992 because it involved the past connecting with the present and the idea of a ghost or spirit.  Pearson got my attention with this one because it involved ghosts which is a topic I love.  And also the description of the couple in Vegas which I found interesting, especially with the whole roulette scene.

I wondered if any of these stories were showing any truth to Pearson's life.  Even though they are works of fiction, perhaps they stemmed from real life events.  One may never know.  I'm also glad that Pearson ended the book with a lighter story such as Dark Shark Date.  It was weird, but also had a little humor to it.  Nothing I went crazy about, but I guess to some it would be extremely funny.

I rated this book 2 out of 5 stars.  I would recommend it to anyone who feels they need a light read and something to pass the time.  But don't expect to be rolling on the floor in a fit of laughter.