Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick

Starred review from August 3, 2020
Exhibiting Wong’s trademark blend of the subtle and the absurd, the riotous second installment to the Zoey Ashe series (after 2016’s Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits) catapults readers back into lawless, futuristic Tabula Ra$a, Utah. Zoey, having inherited her absentee father’s vast criminal empire along with his fortune, must navigate her new role as a mob head, a task made more difficult by her pesky sense of morality and lingering hang-ups from her hard-knock childhood. Her existential crisis takes a sharp turn during Halloween season when a campaign of harassment against her escalates into a hostage situation and a corpse delivered to her doorstep. Then the corpse rises and accuses Zoey of murder. While working to uncover the meaning behind this gory delivery, Zoey must also come to grips with her every move being watched, critiqued, mocked, and emulated thanks to Tabula Ra$a’s all-seeing technological network. Wong sneaks a nuanced examination of the surrealist nature of the digital age into the nonstop action, whipping technological, philosophical, and ethical questions into a wild romp that satirizes everything from the men’s rights movement to gaming culture to the cult of celebrity. This is a brilliant modern parable disguised as pop fiction. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media.

September 1, 2020
Zoey Ashe, still unsure how to manage her father's massive criminal empire after the events of Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (2015), receives a disemboweled corpse in the mail. Online trolls accuse her of being a cannibal and threaten to attack her home. A rival is growing a private security empire, which may or may not be involved in murder. When her beloved cat, Stench Machine, goes missing, Zoey is ready to tear the city apart to get it back. This may be Wong's most timely and topical work to date, featuring incels, trolls, and the rise of private security. Wong's trademark imagination and humor remain but it's his grounded sense of humanity that elevates this work. Zoey is a good person in bizarre circumstances, doing her best to make the world a better place. Wong knows what makes people tick and his vision of humanity isn't rose-colored. But he's also fundamentally an optimist: there are solutions to the problems humanity faces. Not always neat or tidy, not always clean, but readers will feel that they?like Zoey?can stumble through.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from October 1, 2020

It's Halloween month in Tabula Ra$a, the futuristic, (mostly) lawless city in the Utah desert, and Zoey Ashe is still adjusting to being in charge of the vast criminal empire created and left to her by her estranged mobster father, Arthur Livingston. When a disemboweled corpse shows up at Zoey's estate and subsequently rises and goes on a rampage, she thinks she's hit her limit. Then when the corpse publicly announces that not only did Zoey murder him but also ate his missing organs, Zoey ends up with a contract on her life. Everyone in Tabula Ra$a is gunning for Zoey, and she and the Suits have to solve a murder--and keep her alive--before the revolutionary group Blowback causes the city to descend into chaos. VERDICT Wong ("John Dies at the End"series) once again achieves the perfect balance between sardonic humor and satirical digs at the digital age in the sequel to his award-winning Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. Filled with laugh-out-loud moments and philosophical and ethical questions about the nonstop advancements of technology, this novel reminds us of an oft-forgotten question: Just because we can do something, does that mean we should?--Elisabeth Clark, West Florida P.L., Pensacola

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