Review of Statue of Limitations by Jon Konrath

Konrath has ideas to spare.

He throws out ideas like stale jellybeans. This is the type of short book where every sentence is a joke. The jokes take different forms, but quite a few of them rely on puns, as the title intimates.
Unlike the fictional jokes books of Woody Allen, as a random comparison, this book – and I assume all of the author’s other books – do not rely on character arcs or scenes. They are deep dives into the deep-fried. There is an obsessive cataloging of the ills and triumphs of the American fast food industry. Just about every chain, thriving and dead, is skewered. From the “Infinite McDonalds,” to the Chinese restaurant named Hunan Centipede (doesn’t exist). The made-up is meshed with reality’s worst examples of manufactured taste-stimulation. Grease, lard, and massive portions or guacamole make several appearances. Dripping pizzas, long-extinct energy drinks.
Whoever the narrator is is heading for a tripe bypass if he hasn’t had one already.
The satire is through the roof. The lols are guaranteed. (Though I dislike it when authors use the word “lol” to end a sentence in a professional publication, as he does a few times. But is this even professionalism on display or a tongue-in-cheek diss toward the publishing industry?)
Heavy digressions and philosophical asides. The modern era is skewered and roasted on every page. The format is a series of unrelated flash fictions. The author has produced maybe a thousand such story-article-stand-up-bit things, and he expounds on middle class life, daily complaints, relationship problems, but mostly gastronomic immoralities.
It is a fantastic example of free-form, lucy-goosy, un-clichéd, somewhat valid opinions, shaped around squalid descents into distinctly American grotesqueries. Oh, Consumerism!