Bad Monkeys: A Novel (P.S.)

"Bad Monkeys" is one of my favorite recent books. The plot, an agent of the Bad Monkeys, a squad dedicated to stopping people from doing evil, tells her wild tale of how she came to be in a jail cell. The protagonist is not the most reliable narrator, and it's fun trying to pick out what is or isn't true. I see that several people complain about the ending. Personally, I loved the ending, as things going completely off the rails, and the final twist is a doozy. It's a short book and a quick, fun read.

Bad Monkeys is a brilliant, layered experiment that will test the reader’s ability to separate truth from lies, fantasy from reality, and good from evil. It’s a fun, zany adventure that may force you to learn something about your own morality.

Bad Monkeys quite simply kept me riveted- I was sucked into the story from the first few pages. The plot is very original and goes places I never expected. While the end of the book is a bit `over the top', the story arc is very satisfying and entertaining. You're in for a wild ride with Jane Charlotte as she tells how she got involved with `The Organization'.

This was my first experience with Matt Ruff, but if the rest of his books are as imaginative and hard to put down as Bad Monkeys then I can't wait to read them.

Okay, let's start out at the beginning. This book was amazing in every aspect, from the plotline (A secret organization of assasins?! Classic, but great.) to the characters (A lady that acts schizophrenic for her own sake even though she is really quite sane makes an appearance.) to... about five pages before the ending. (Jane has her NC gun pulled on our main villain, and then...)

Let me tell you of my experience the ten minutes after finishing the book: nearly crying, I searched through the remaining (blank) pages, convinced that this was some sort of joke, that the real ending was sure to come. The final twist was a baseless, cliched character-destroying move that had me crying, "Matt Ruff, what are you thinking?!"

In the end, I had to write a new ending and tape it to the back of the book to put my broken heart to rest.

'Course, the book was still amazing. Until it ended. Read it, PLEASE read it, but just stop at the point I mentioned earlier. Please.

It was an amazingly entertaining read, I truly enjoyed the book, the funny thing is, that sometimes I found myself chuckling, thinking, who in the world would believe this? But that just made it more fun. The end brings so many twists in so few pages that you have to reread them a couple of times just to make sure the seesaw stopped moving. Anyways, the book did leave me a little paranoid, and every now and then I find myself rubbing the eyes on the cereal boxes. (when you read it you'll understand.)

Excellent book that grabs you from the start. It's definitely one of the fastest books I've read in a long time as I never wanted to put it down.

The storyteller seems untrustworthy at times, but the author throws in enough intrigue to keep you guessing.

Matt Ruff writes too slowly. Unfortunately I read his first book right when it was published and had to wait forever to get more of him. I gave up, and then accidentally found this book in Borders one day. That led to his other book, as well. I want more. Yes there is murder, mystery and deception in this book. That all works. The big question is what is a "Bad Monkey" and should we kill it. We certainly believe in the death penalty in America. Fire away...

I understand why some other have panned the ending to this book. I myself found it a little rushed, and I generally dislike endings with all sorts of twists and turns in the last five pages. However, I'll let that slide, because the rest of the book is well-written and rather original. It's a book I'll re-read sometime in the future, I'm sure. Also, I'm definitely going to check out Ruff's other stuff when I get the chance.

After such a wonderful start, and stretches of brilliance, perhaps I was expecting too much of a spectacular ending instead of a seeming ho-hum almost predictable cop-out that was delivered. Still, the writing was crisp, suspenseful, and the action delivered in bursts that were believable and fun. Worth the read, and the reader will be left with his or her own decision regarding the ending. Almost 4 stars, but not quite. Still, a recommended read.

Some of the reviews that I read on various websites made it sound like this book was a little too out there for me and I almost didn't read it for that reason. I'm your average mystery, thriller, crime fiction kind of reader most of the time. But anyway, I decided to read it and I really enjoyed it. Calling all readers, try it, I really think you'll like it.

In Matt Ruff's fourth novel, Bad Monkeys, he gives us story that may be crime noir, thriller, science fiction, dark comedy, or any combination of those and more. YOU will not know exactly what it is until the last chapter. On the way there, though, you'll experience a wild ride of a book.

Jane Charlotte is in the prison psychological wing, charged with murder. Her excuse? She works for a secret organization charged with ridding the world of people too evil to be allowed to live. As she gives her story, you decide what the truth is.

While I generally read novels very slowly it took me to time at all to finish "Bad Monkeys". The slow revelation style of narrative sunk its teeth in and would not let go. I came to the store to grab Ruff's other books.

Highly recommend.

Part sci-fi thriller, part gallows-dark humor, all gripping! Matt Ruff proves that the imagination and stunning twists behind his first novel, "Set This House in Order," were not a fluke. I read late into the night and got up early the next morning to finish it.

This book is a mix of science fiction, action thriller, and mystery novel rolled into one. The protagonist is a lady who has lived a life without purpose for many years and finally finds herself living for a purpose but not happy about the choices.

From rough child hood to the life of a killer disposing of Bad Monkeys, our heroine struggles with family, job, and the enemies from both.

This book will keep you captivated through out. Though the story is told as if being told in the past, it has a feel of immediacy to it. Even knowing part of what happens doesn't diminish the tension at key points.

The gadgets are interesting but really a side bit to the overall plot. Things aren't quite what they seem either, and you'll be guessing until the end.

I recommend if you like a bit of scifi in your thriller, and don't mind a bit of wackiness that you pick this paperback up and enjoy.

There are those who would summarize six seasons of "The Sopranos" as a man's life illuminated through the perspective of his therapy sessions. It was almost inevitable to conceive that comparison when I realized that Matt Ruff's new novel, Bad Monkeys, is chronicled as the lead character's conversations with a shrink in a Las Vegas jail following her arrest for "killing someone [she] shouldn't have."

The prisoner's qualification is an important one; there are, you see, other people she is supposed to have killed. Bad Monkeys, Ruff's fourth novel and a follow-up to the electric multiple-personality tale in Set This House in Order, allows this seasoned killer to tell the tale from childhood of how she came to be a reluctant -- or not-so-reluctant -- assassin, doing away with "irredeemable persons," those whose death would clearly improve society.

Almost like one of the early M. Night Shyamalan stories (back when they made sense), Bad Monkeys offers unexpected twists and even climactic revelations. As our protagonist is quick to recognize, things are not always as they seem. Ruff does a wonderful job of dividing his story into delightfully detailed, flowing narratives about Jane Charlotte's life, punctuated with brief vignettes when she's interacting directly with the doctor who's trying to figure out how much of what she's describing is all in her head.