"Otherworld" by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller

I honestly cannot recall a time when I did not finish a particular book because I found the mind of the narrator too unbearable to dwell in for a few hours.  Well, there is truly a first for everything. I downloaded Otherworld by Jason Segel as an audiobook to listen to during a recent weekend drive to another city. I like his middle grade series called Nightmares! and wanted to check out his other work.

Otherworld is supposed to be the YA version of a story in the vein of Ready Player One, which I loved. A few minutes into the book, it became very clear that the main character from whose point of view the book is written, cannot get his mind out of the gutter for even a second. I kept cringing at his descriptions and both my husband and I kept glancing at each other in disbelief. Thankfully, our teenage daughter was not particularly interested in listening to the book and had her earphones on.  We finally decided to quit midway through chapter two when the main character was about to pull a particularly cringe worthy prank on his neighbors.

Perhaps the book gets better later on. There are certainly very positive reviews on Goodreads, and it clearly merited two sequels. I did not stick around to find out, and based on the first two chapters cannot imagine the main character’s thinking would elevate above his waistline. 1 star out of 5.