69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess by Stewart Home

I read '69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess' by Stewart Home and I feel like it stirred a lot of opinions in me that I now need to express through a blog, or rather it inspired me to start my blog! At 182 pages this was not a particularly long read. This queer work of fiction wasn't enjoyable to me, although it certainly made me wonder about other strong subjects such as mental health, having a passion for literature and wanting to travel around Aberdeen!!

I must warn you now, there will be spoilers throughout this review. I feel as though my review would not be as thorough without explaining and setting the story correctly.

So the book is about Anna Moon, a crazy bitch who is all about fucking Alan (an older man obsessed with literature) and Dudley (A Ventriloquist Dummy!?) at various locations in Aberdeen that contain ancient stone circles. It follows the three of them around Aberdeen hearing about their perverse sexual shenanigans and the need to sleep with anyone they came across, it may seem. A majority of the book however is full of Alan's ramblings about various literature I guarantee you nor I will have read or heard of before now. I won't disclose the twist. Although there is a mind fucking twist indeed.

Lets start with the book's setting. I can honestly say I haven't thought twice about Aberdeen before but Stewart's description of different areas and stone circles made me want to do the same adventure, climb Bennachie, do Mither Tap. See how beautiful it is here. If this review gives you no desire what so ever to read the book, at least google Aberdeen. Unfortunately whilst the characters are not in the beautiful Aberdeenshire hills they are usually in a crappy cafe, buying junk food from Safeway or banging in one of their crappy bedsits. Although thinking about it clearly now, Stewart is obviously making a stark difference between locations and situations as a focus on Anna's mental health. Whilst she is exploring she isn't right of mind but whilst in crappier locations its a harsh way of showing Anna's actual reality. Stewart was descriptive enough with the stone circles that at times I really could see where Anna, Alan and Dudley's adventure was set.

Stewart wrote this story from mainly Anna's point of view, although she was not a relatable character - I cannot decide if this is intentional or not. I hated Dudley's personality, therefore Alan became my favourite character out of them all. Alan has a horrible habit of just rambling on about literature facts however. Put the three together you get a perverse sex dream and a world of upside down.

The language to me that I found most shocking, hilariously was 'Beef Curtains'. This is just a small example of gems written around Anna, Alan and Dudley's sex stories. That could be a pro and possibly one of the stars given on 'Goodreads', The lewd language did make me chuckle throughout and it kept me reading through Alan's ramblings to get to the next saucy ridiculous bit.

As you can see so far that my opinions were totally torn with this book. On one hand it kept me hooked to keep me reading though the end and on the other is horrible language, boring settings (sometimes) and lengthy book rants from Alan. Although if the 10% of fun in this book got me to read 100% of it then Home certain did his job right.

'69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess' is bizarre, weirdly instructive (on climbing hills, not screwing inanimate objects...) and most certainly memorable. In fact I don't know how I will erase it from my brain!
Google - Thumbs down
Goodreads - 2 Stars