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Michael Loring's Reviews > Kneller's Happy Campers

Kneller's Happy Campers by Etgar Keret
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it was amazing
bookshelves: favorite-novels

It’s very hard to put into words this incredibly odd story. It’s set in a world that’s just like ours, but is slightly worse and full of people who have commited suicide. People walk around with holes in their heads, gruesome scars along their neck and arms, and blue faces; all according to how they did it. It’s a very unique tale about Mordy, a man who killed himself after the breakup between him and his girlfriend Desiree. When he discovers that Desiree, too, has commited suicide and now resides within the same plain as him, he recruits his only friend Uzi to go on an adventure to find her. Along the way they pick up a hitchhiker named Leehee who’s searching for the “People In Charge.” With Leehee and Uzi behind him, Mordy finds that even in the dreary afterlife there’s still a chance for happiness.

The overall mood of the book is dark and moody, the comedy very morbid and dry, but still as funny as slapstick. It brings a unique perspective to the idea of life and the meaning of it, even for those who aren’t alive any more.
Mordy is a very relatable character, speaking just like someone you’d meet off the street with a very twisted sense of humor about the situation. He’s a fairly miserable guy, but hopes for happiness and love even when the opposite stares him in the face and everyone tells him to give it up. Despite his flaws and his dismal demeanor, he’s everyone who has ever felt depressed or sad in life and embodies the hope for something better.

Kneller’s Happy Campers has been adapted into two other formats. One is a graphic novel titled Pizzeria Kamikaze (based on the fact Mordy works at a pizzeria of the same name in the novella) with illistrations by Asaf Hanuka. The second adaption is a movie, renamed Wristcutters: A Love Story which has been changed a lot from the book to fit American audiences (such as changing the main characters’ names). All versions of this novella are amazing, and I seriously recommend you check them ALL out!
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Reading Progress

September 4, 2012 – Shelved
Started Reading
September 12, 2012 – Finished Reading
August 26, 2020 – Shelved as: favorite-novels

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