Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker

I've been a Clive Barker fan for sooo long. I remember when his book Everville came out, I was so excited and I read it in like 3 days. And I was not disappointed. Nor was I when I read the Books of Blood, Weaveworld, Cabal, Sacrament, The Hellbound Heart, and others. But, I must say that Mister B. Gone was close to being disappointing. It wasn't a totally bad book, and it's possible that my review is influenced by the many bad reviews I've read on Amazon.com, but I just couldn't get into it as much as I did his other novels.

One thing though, is the idea and concept of this book is amazing. The book had the potential to be a whole lot better than it was. It was also very short and there wasn't much to the story. But, with all that said, I actually did enjoy the book. I thought the lead character Jakabok was pretty interesting and believable. He tells the story from first person, which I enjoy, and we can really get into his head. I thought his descriptions of his childhood, growing up in hell, and his parents were good. And, I enjoyed the relationship between Mister B. and his demon friend Quinntoon. So, although there are some things about this book that I found disappointing, mostly the story itself seemed a bit anticlimatic, and too much ranting and pleading by the demon author, it was very good in other aspects. I would give it a 7 out of 10.