Review: Den Fantastiska Berättelsen om Fakiren Som Fastnade i ett IKEA-skåp

Den Fantastiska Berättelsen om Fakiren Som Fastnade i ett IKEA-skåp by Romain Puértolas
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

FUCK THIS BOOK. Like, literally, just FUCK IT. I am tempted to fucking ILLEGALLY DOWNLOAD IT just so I cant print that shit out and burn it, so I get the satisfaction of destroying it while also not giving the author any money. THAT'S HOW MUCH I HATE IT.

It's racist, transphobic and sexist, but most of all RACIST all the fucking time. And I wish I could say "oh, it's well-written and funny, such a shame with all the racism", but NO it's NOT funny, it's not well-written, it has nothing going for it AND ON TOP OF THAT IT'S FUCKING RACIST TOO!? Fuck that.

I get that it was written with good intention, but as well know THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS AND THIS FUCKING BELONGS IN THE DEEPEST DARKEST CIRCLES OF HELL. I get that the author wanted to portray the how horrible reality is for paperless immigrants and refugees, but this is NOT the way to do it!? The tone of the book is so fucking light, you don't feel for these characters plotpoints at all, because it's always so "funny" (it's not funny) and "tongue-in-cheek" (it's not that either). It just falls completely flat.

And even worse - who are the bad guys in this book about the terrible conditions about the paperless immigrants? The immigration office? The police? The border agency? NO THE FUCKING ROMANI TAXI DRIVER THAT THE MAIN CHARACTER SCAMS OUT OF MONEY IN THE FIRST PAGES OF THE BOOK, AND OF COURSE ALL OF HIS EXTENDED FAMILY!?!?!?!?!?!?! WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK!??!?!??! That's so fucking gross, I can't even deal with it.

Apart from that, everyone name in the book is treated as a joke, but ESPECIALLY the Hindu names. We're always treated to "funny" pronounciation guides and the main character's family has made-up names like Rizbasmati and Pakmaan (pronounced like Pacman HAHHAHAH GET IT!??!?!?!). And this goes on and on and on and on through-out the book. If we're not treated to shit like Rizbasmati, it's Tom Cruise-Jesús Cortéz Santamaria: a name the author can't even be bothered to write out halfway through, reducing it to Tom Cruise-Jesús blahblahblah.

I hear this was written in a month, and I'm not surprised because it reads like an unedite NaNoWriMo novel.

AND I'M NOT DONE. The female characters are either whores or madonnas, and the most complex one - the completely pointless love interest - is both, because a great female character is one you can describe as a fragile porcelain doll AND then turn around a slutshame. The fact that the romani women are described as "whores" several times is too gross for words.

The plot isn't much better: it's so convoluted and makes no sense. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but I fucknig HATE when novels rely on everyone being completely stupid and useless all the time just so things happen the way the author wanted them to. Nothing makes sense or is even the least bit believeable. Halfway through the MC starts writing a novel, and we're treated to ten pages of his "book" (it's literally the entire novel). He then pitches this to a publisher and gets 100,000 euro in advance, ALL PAID IN FUCKING CASH THE SAME DAY AS THE PUBLISHED READ HIS FOUR PAGES LONG STORY. This isn't even a little bit reasonable!? It's seriously just done so that the MC can run around with a bag full of cash, which is something that just HAS to happen in this HILARIOUS large than life middle-age adventure stories. Because of course.

Then the fakir learns that friendship is magic and becomes Rarity, representing the spirit of generosity and it makes him feel so good to give his money away to some random dude plot-point he met earlier in the story. The plot with the murderous romani man is resolved off-page, with an off-handed remark in the last page. It ends happily, which sucks. I was hoping the main character would die horribly when fearing for his life, but there was 50 pages left of the book by then so I kinda new it wouldn't happen.

I could go on, but this review might end up longer than the fucking book itself. It's clear this is a first-time writer: the metaphors are very basic and falls flat and the language is pretty poor. It doesn't help that the author is CONSTANTLY complimenting his own fucking writing IN the text??? I mean, Stephen Moffat couldn't dream to achieve these levels of over-confidence in his own fucking storytelling, and that's saying a lot.

Don't read this book. It's offensive to fucking everyone and I hope the movie never gets made.

View all my reviews

True story.