REVIEW: “Ordinary World” by Tony McGuin

I am venturing on to new paths.  I love film and I love books (wish I had time to read more).  So I thought to myself, why not start reviewing them?  So I am going to.

(That was all a true story, I didn’t dramatise it at all).

My first victim is Tony McGuin.  Ordinary World is his debut novel and is published by LL-Publications.  You will never have read anything quite like it…

Review: Ordinary World

There is one amazing revelation that everyone who reads Ordinary World, by Tony McGuin, will experience, and that is the concrete certainty that there is someone out there with an imagination more f**ed up than anyone the reader knows, even ‘Funny’ Uncle Trevor, who your Mum would never allow near you, unsupervised. In fact, a rumour passed my way that Joseph Fritzel finished reading the story, just before his trial, and announced “Tony McGuin, there’s a man who isn’t afraid of a little controversy.” I first read the blurb on the back of the cover, and thanked God. I had finally discovered an author who shares his thoughts with a more demented demon than my own (Rory).

Right now, you are wondering to yourself what can possibly be so disgusting that it warrants the use of Joseph Fritzel’s name in the opening paragraph of a review (which is probably a world first, I might add) so I am going to hit you with it, hard and fast:  In Ordinary World, someone wants to open a fast food chain that sells burgers that have been made from aborted human foetuses.

Yes, you did read that correctly (unless I spelt foetuses wrong).

The story centres around Tohon Sehsa and Boater, two of the most unlikely heroes that you will ever meet. Actually, they are not heroes, not in the slightest, and McGuin never makes them out to be anything else. The classic combination of a tall, thin guy and a short, fat bloke has been used countless times before, but not like this.  Never have they been murdering, scheming, drunken, woman-beating, lying, cheating, scumbags like these, and they are the good guys!  Even though they are terrible excuses for human-beings, you can’t help but like them, and you can tell McGuin does too. These two find themselves wrapped up in the entire foetus burger fiasco, in more ways than one.

So in a book about eating foetuses, and murdering, drunken heroes, what the hell are the bad guys like?  The funny thing is, again, there is something likable about all the characters that McGuin creates. There is always something quirky or intriguing about some of the most despicable villains to ever walk the pages of morality. Even the priests with questionable ethics fiddled their ways into my heart. Why does McGuin get away with it?  The explanation is simple: this book is laugh-out-loud funny. There are some terribly dark scenes within the three-hundred pages, but there is always something to bring you back. Always.

Before you throw-up, phone the police or organise a lynch mob on McGuin, hold your horses. You see, there is a sense of morality behind it all, and, although it is very easy to forget that and get wrapped up in the word “foetus,” a word which I have just used more times than in a Midwife’s textbook, there is so much more to the story than that.  McGuin creates a horrible world of the future, where religion is all that matters and is the driving force behind everyday life, but God has somehow been forgotten. Only in this world could a reader become comfortable with the idea of a foetus burger. Only the mind of this man could allow a reader to become comfortable with this horrific idea, and then hit you with something ten times worse, nearly half way through the book.

Yes.  It gets worse.

I can’t divulge anymore, as I want you to experience the emotional roller-coaster that is Ordinary World.  This book is not written to simply shock the reader with vileness.  There are glimpses of hope in a world seemingly gone mad, and even the most horrific of characters can find a little love in their hearts (not including the priests, mind). You will never have read anything like this before, and you should give it a go. There is a fantastic story underlying the nasty subject matter, and a cast full of characters who you will not be able to forget.

Ordinary World: A title that can only be appreciated once you have turned the final page.

Ordinary world is available direct from LL-publications and also Amazon