Book Review: Killing Britney

Nicole-Lyn doesn't sugarcoat her opinion about this piece of literary FAIL; we hope you can handle the truth!—Sparkitors

Direct quote: “Britney is the girl everyone loves to hate.”

Never has the back of a book been so blunt about the fact that you will inevitably despise the main character. Good for you, Sean Olin. At least you're self-aware. Now to the actual review! Onwards ho!

Killing Britney, by Sean Olin, is about a normal girl named Britney, which is strange because after reading the title I thought it would be about a steampunk cowboy named Kevin. (Who else thinks that would be an awesome?) The story focuses on her life, which is so disgustingly perfect and normal that it could only end in death and despair and destruction and death. There are other characters in there somewhere that might be important to something, but in all honesty, I’ve repressed most of the memories of this book, and I am in the process of double-thinking my way into believing it doesn’t actually exist. (Whoever got that 1984 reference, I commend you. You are an awesome person who wins all the Interwebs.)

If I had to pick the most memorable characters though, it would be a tough decision between Suspicious Orange Jacket Guy and Random Hackey Sack Player Number Two. People around Britney start getting killed off, you find out her dead mom was a satchel full of crazy cake, and . . . that’s pretty much it. It sounds like a bad student film now, but believe me when I say that it is riveting. And by riveting, I mean it’s a useless killing of trees; they really are interchangeable terms if you think about it for less than two seconds.

All this pointless stuff happens involving drama, poorly written exposition, subplots that literally come to a dead end (it’s funny because the book’s about murder), and the endless font of depressing teen angst that is Britney. But I can handle worthless subplots, people. I can even take characters that are about as interesting as a bag of assorted rocks. But I can only stand so much before I start wishing the book had a hardcover so I could beat myself into unconsciousness with it. That turning point came with this shocking revelation: this book makes no sense. This. Book. Makes. No. Sense. This book makes no frickin’ sense!

It’s like Olin just wrote the death scenes for some stupid B-movie, and then his not-that-bright friend showed up and said, “Hey, you know what? You should totally make a book with all this, man! Oh, and you could put a twist at the ending that puts all those awesome new M. Night Shyamalan movies to shame. Doesn’t that sound awesome, man? Doesn’t it?” Then, two weeks later, Olin finished this expensive paperweight and threatened a publisher at gunpoint to publish it. The end. . . . Except for Olin’s really Elvis and his friend is a robotic orangutan in a suit!

(If you just have to make a nonsensical and unnecessary twist ending, you should go all out, Olin. Remember that.)

The characters are hardly characters, the twist makes the rest of the book make even less sense than it already did, Olin fails geography forever, and the story is set mainly in Wisconsin. This is truly a man with no shame, ladies and gentlemen. The only redeemable things about Killing Britney are the death scenes (which I believe are the only things Olin actually wanted to write), but there aren’t enough of them to save it from crashing into Epic Fail Island and burning into abysmal nothingness. To add insult to injury, Britney doesn’t even die; considering the title and how ungodly obnoxious she is, that was a huge, soul crushing disappointment. That isn’t a spoiler by the way; bad books have no spoilers, only warnings.

If you like plotless and gory slasher flicks, there might be a faint glimmer of a possibility that you’ll find this book tolerable in some way, shape, or form. Everyone else should treat it like their creepy uncle and keep their distance. Just avoid it; it will put a pox on all your houses! Or whatever that mildly threatening saying is.

DANG, GIRL. That might be our favorite book review of all time. Somwhere, Sean Olin is weeping.

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