Review: "Bad Monkeys" by Matt Ruff

I enjoyed Lovecraft Country enough to read another book by Matt Ruff, though I enjoyed the TV show more than the novel. This time, without a TV show to draw my attention, I picked the book randomly. And I chose “Bad Monkeys”. I quickly discovered that it, like “Lovecraft Country” had an interesting premise, was well written, and had several major flaws that made it more difficult for me to enjoy the book.

What I liked about “Bad Monkeys” by Matt Ruff

At its heart, the plot of “Bad Monkeys” is an interesting if not entirely original idea. Basically, there is an organization that hunts down and kills people who are irredeemably evil.

It’s also important to understand that the point of killing them isn’t vengeance. It is to stop them from doing more harm. They explain this through an analogy of a choice between killing one of two people. The first ran a Nazi concentration camp and helped kill a million people. He is now elderly, weak and unlikely to hurt anyone again. The other is a young man who has killed only a single person, but he enjoyed it and is almost certain to kill again. Their point is that if you want revenge, killing the Nazi is the easy choice, but if you want to limit the amount of harm done, then you kill the person who is going to do damage in the future even if it’s far less damage.

The book also has some pseudo magical technology that is interesting and largely unexplained. The most important is a natural causes gun. It effectively gives someone a heart attack, though it has other options like a stroke or narcoleptic seizure, the last allowing them to capture people rather than killing them. They also can spy on people through what they call the eyes only device. It allows them to look through the eyes of any object. Whether this is magic, advanced science and how they can do it really isn’t explored in the story.

The characters are also pretty interesting. From the members of the organization and counter organization to the people that Jane meets, they all have at least something that makes them memorable.

What I liked less about “Bad Monkeys” by Matt Ruff

The thing I liked least about both the TV show and the book “Lovecraft Country” was the episodic nature of the narrative. Even as a weekly show, the TV show felt more like a cohesive story than the book. “Bad Monkeys” is marginally less episodic than “Lovecraft Country” because of the structure, which is that it is being told by Jane. But it still jumps around to almost entirely unrelated stories and often feels as if the author would rather write an anthology than a novel. So while parts of the story may theoretically be important to other parts, in most cases they’re far more loosely connected than it might seem.

The other thing that I didn’t love was the narrator. It is obvious from the first page that Jane is an unreliable narrator. And that makes it obvious from the first page that there is going to be a twist. The only question is the nature of that twist. But in a story like this, there are only few options what the twist could be. And the thing about both unreliable narrators and twists is that they are a tight-wire. One that you either get perfectly or miss entirely, and while missing may not ruin the experience of the book, it certainly hurts it. And, for me, “Bad Monkeys” missed.

My Final Thoughts about “Bad Monkeys” by Matt Ruff

“Bad Monkeys” is a well written book with an interesting premise and good characters. And I honestly believe that it probably would be better the second time through in part because both of my major problems with the book, the unreliable narrator and twist ending are tricks that only really matter the first time you read a story. Knowing the exact nature of both of them would mean you could enjoy finding all the hints in the narrative rather than spending the book waiting for them.

I can’t say that I loved this book. But, for the right reader, someone who likes dark stories and Matt Ruff, or someone who likes unreliable narration and twists, I can see it being excellent. So I’ll give it a limited recommendation.