heads you lose

Title: Heads You Lose

Author: Lisa Lutz and David Hayward

Date Finished: July 7, 2011

Personal Book Count: 24 out of 75

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Genre/ Subject: mystery/humor

First Line: Paul flipped the coin and Lacey called tails.

Why did I pick this book?: I had seen it in the library a couple of times. The description made me laugh, I loved the premise.

Summary and Review: taken from the books website-

“Meet Paul and Lacey Hansen: orphaned, pot-growing, twentysomething siblings eking out a living in rural Northern California. When a headless corpse appears on their property, they can’t exactly dial 911, so they move the body and wait for the police to find it. Instead, the corpse reappears, a few days riper ... and an amateur sleuth is born. Make that two.

But that’s only half of the story. When collaborators Lutz and Hayward—former romantic partners—start to disagree about how the story should unfold, the body count rises, victims and suspects alike develop surprising characteristics (meet Brandy Chester, the stripper with the Mensa IQ), and sibling rivalry reaches homicidal intensity. Will the authors solve the mystery without killing each other first?”

This book was fun. I don’t know what I enjoyed more, the twisting story (some on purpose, some sabotage) or the bickering in between each chapter (and sometimes in footnotes at the bottom) by the authors. These were fun, believable characters (if sometimes 2 dimensional) that everyone has meet at least one example of in their life. I have lived in a small town, and couldn’t help but picture it as I read this story. As outlandish as some of the things that happened in the book were, there were many I could see happening. I really liked both Lacey and Paul, I never really found myself taking sides. I found myself wanting to support them and strangle each of them in equal measure. Like many mystery main characters, they both did some stupid things. If you are an author this book is worth the read for the twists and turn the authors throw each other, and how they try and out write each other. A great summer read. =D

Agree? Disagree? Recommendations? Any insights, suggestions, or comments on the book or format, or blog at all are most welcome. If you have read this and/ or review it yourself, please let me know. Can you think of any books like this? Give me a recommendation! =D