In which I review a book about crazy people

Driving Me Nuts! by PJ Jones is a funny little book. You can get through it in a night, and you'll smile while you read it, but there's a lot of depth here. Ruckus and Fred sneak out of the Shady Grove mental institution every Friday, steal the orderly's car, and take a trip into town to buy ice cream and romance novels. Apple, another inmate, has bigger plans when she tricks her way onto their traditional expedition, and takes them on a road trip they'll never forget.

Right? OK, here's the deal, Driving Me Nuts! has some of the best characters I've met in a long, long time. The book has all of the things that great books have, gunfights, a love story, snappy dialogue, intense scenes, creepy bad guys, all of that. But the characters really drive this story, and they do it so well I've been thinking about them for a week. I'd liken it to the Portal video game. Yes, it's short, but it does what it does so well that part of what makes it so good is that it's so tightly crafted that there isn't any need for something longer.

In the right eye (mine), Jones teaches a class in character development in this book, and I'm a better writer for having read it. Look at it another way and you'll be hard pressed to like someone who'll piss on your mail as much as you like Ruckus. Even the weakest link of this cast of characters, the hobo, Garth Vader, is more an embodiment of magical realism than anything else, and I ain't one to knock a book over a bit of style.

Jones has deservedly gotten a fair amount of praise for her parody work, but I suspect I won't be the last fan she wins with Driving Me Nuts! instead.

5/5