The Job of the Wasp
Written by Colin Winnette
Narrated by Will Ropp
3/5
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About this audiobook
“The Job of the Wasp is a madcap mystery, a macabre coming-of-age story and an unearthly fantasy—but it feels like childhood, like the world, like life.” —Daniel Handler, author of We Are Pirates and All The Dirty Parts
A new arrival at an isolated school for orphaned boys quickly comes to realize there is something wrong with his new home. He hears chilling whispers in the night, his troubled classmates are violent and hostile, and the Headmaster sends cryptic messages, begging his new charge to confess. As the new boy learns to survive on the edges of this impolite society, he starts to unravel a mystery at the school’s dark heart. And that’s when the corpses start turning up.
A coming-of-age tale, a Gothic ghost story, and a murder mystery all in one, The Job of the Wasp is a bloodcurdling and brilliantly subversive novel about paranoia, love, and the nightmare of adolescence.
Colin Winnette
Colin Winnette is the author of five books, including the SPD-bestseller Coyote (Les Figues) and Haints Stay (Two Dollar Radio). He was the winner of Les Figues Press's 2014 NOS Book Contest, as well as a finalist for Gulf Coast Magazine's Donald Barthelme Prize for Short Prose and the Cleveland State University Poetry Center's First Book Award. His writing has appeared in Lucky Peach, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Believer, The American Reader, and numerous other publications and anthologies. He worked as a bookseller for most of his adult life, in Texas, New York, Vermont, and California. He lives San Francisco. More information can be found online at www.colinwinnette.net.
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Users Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Haints Stay Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for The Job of the Wasp
33 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Not sure where the horror was, and suspense was never achieved. There was only 1 main character, but his development was not only superficial, but his long winded, egomania became boring and contrived. There was a bleak attempt at maniacalism, which could have elevated the story but fell apart quickly. This should have been labeled YA...there were no graphic scenes, nor horrific depictions, or situations. The narrator was very good and was the only reason I kept going...him and the hope something would happen. I'm going to pick weeds in the garden now, it would be more exciting.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5A review here describes "an opaque ending". It's another way of explaining 191 pages of prose that was a can of loose end worms. A final chapter saying: "Figure it all out for yourself" would have been more suitable.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was a weird little book. It is very much a gothic Lord of the Flies. We never learn the main characters name or age. He is sent to a small country orphanage where there may be ghosts. There are certainly murders piling up. A creepy atmosphere of paranoia pervades the school and the rest of the boys who reside there. Shocking acts of violence punctuate the story as it builds to an equally opaque ending.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a quick, and strange read! A boy arrives at a school/boarding house for boys and things just get weird. People start dying, no one knows the boy or his name, and someone (or ones) may, or may not, be ghosts! Even though I wasn't a fan of the ending, I did enjoy the strangeness of the story. I felt very off kilter throughout. It reminded me of how I felt reading "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" by Shirley Jackson. I never really knew what was going on, but I enjoyed the ride!