Max Booth III has a talent for creating a sinister bizarro world that feels just like home. Everything is just one shade north of normal in that way that makes you sure that somewhere, probably not far from you, these scenarios are playing out as nonfiction--and that's an uncomfortable feeling.It's a story of high stakes and low morals. If you like your social dread and hopelessness served with a side of humor, then you should definitely read this.

Man, this is messed up. Just, like...damn.I'm not usually one for the downward spiral stories - you know, the ones that start in a bad place and then just get progressively worse until pretty much everyone's dead? Always star Andy Garcia? Yeah, they're really not my jam. But what Booth does here is he takes that genre and just vomits all over it. Yeah, there's the over-arching crime plot. But there's also a severely trippy drug epidemic subplot, one of the most awful (and yet endearing) family s...

TOXICITY seeps under your skin, infecting you with black comedy, shocking violence, and the stinking desperation of bad people rotting in the sun. And yet somehow, we still root for these dark souls—and that is the genius of Max Booth III.

If Belgian drug writer Henri Michaux would've decided to re-write Hamlet, it would've probably become something close to Max Booth III's TOXICITY, a domestic tragedy seen through the lens of a hip, new (and fortunately for us fictional) drug called Jericho. I think my favourite aspect of this novel was the absurd and random chapters of Jericho victim Johnny Desperation, which have actually something to do with the overarching storyline, but operate within its own logic. TOXICITY can feel sometim...

First off, let me say that I received this book free through the Goodreads Giveaway event. The author was quick on sending the book off, included his signature, a special personal message, an 8pg song list made especially to be played for every chapter. All very appreciated.I suppose some can say that drugs saves lives and also that it takes them; but what if a certain drug can do both? Jean d'Arc spoke with God; did that help or hinder her cause? What about God's cause? How would WE even know t...

This book was previously described to me as a dark comedy. I’m not sure whether that is 100% accurate, though there is certainly dark humor in its pages, and the book may not be easy to classify otherwise.The story follows the characters of Maddox Kane, a man recently released from prison; his daughter Addison, who has a difficult life at home to say the very least; and Johnny Desperation, a young man who falls into a series of curious occurrences that include the lottery and a fly. The fly in q...

Usually when I read a really off-the-wall story with a lot of crazy STUFF that happens, there are huge gaps in the actual storytelling. The action will be nonstop and the zingers zingy, but the writing itself suffers. The characters are transparent, or the dialogue is hacky and trite. The author spends too much time on the zaniness and action and either forgets about character and story or thinks that it doesn't matter.That is SO not the case with Toxicity. I genuinely got attached to the charac...

With his newest release, Toxicity, Max Booth III has taken a break from the wild western zombies of Black as well as the flash fiction of They Might Be Demons and thrown us into the complex, nasty world of the suburbs of Chicago. Having grown up there, I can vouch for this; they are truly frightening, indeed.The world he shows us is one full of trashy scumbags and bad criminals, down on their luck losers and high school kids who are just as high as they are rich. He drives us smack dab in the mi...

This story is nothing if not a wild ride, but more than that, it's a wild ride whose trajectory goes directly along the edge... from beginning to end... with maybe a couple slips OVER the edge.It's one of those great tales that weaves together a bunch of people's lives until they all lead up to this tremendous, climactic, explosive ending, with plenty of things along the way that you don't see coming until they smack you in the face, or stab you in the eye. It's mostly the story of Maddox Kane,

Toxiciy is Dark. Toxicity is twisted. At times, Toxicity is hilarious, without ever failing to be dark and twisted.Toxicity is part jet black shaggy-dog story, part 'True Romance'-style dark love tale, part diary of hallucinogenic psychosis. It's not quite full Gonzo, but the ghost of Dr. Thompson definitely lurks at the edges of the page from time to time. Toxicity has a lot going on.As the title suggests, it's a cocktail that invites unease, if not nausea. The elements noted above may not seem...

The author asked me to read and review an Advance Reader Copy of this book. The ARC e-book had some typoes, homophones, and misused words such as pass instead of past but I could overlook them to read the story and when published, I'm sure these imperfections will be corrected. - - - -I'm 25% through, getting ready to start chapter 10. So far we have been introduced to newly released ex-con, Maddox Kane who had a short career in major league baseball until he was caught as a cocaine dealer and M...

NetGalley review 03-11-16:"Toxicity" is a raging comic inferno, delivered as a pitch-black, bizarre novel. For every laugh here, there's a haunting, reverberating scream somewhere in the darkness. There are gloriously otherworldly remarks and fantastically lurid images on every page. I couldn't help but chuckle, constantly at even the most atrocious, gruesome, and disturbing situations the characters got themselves into. This was my second novel by MB III, and I've come to strongly believe that

REVIEWED: ToxicityWRITTEN BY: Max Booth IIIPUBLISHED: TBD, 2014Fire up the pink Cadillac and huff your latest dose of Purple, TOXICITY, is a wild, careening ride through a landscape of criminals, wild drugs, fantasy, and sweet hope. This is the inaugural novel by writer and editor, Max Booth III, who’s shown a deft hand in story creation through short fiction tales found over the past few years in magazines, anthologies, and collections. TOXICITY follows the intertwining lives of felon, Maddox K...

Violent yet human, Toxicity is a strong story for those who are not easily offended.For a full review, please go to https://areviewerdarkly.blogspot.com/... and follow me on Twitter @josenher

Misfits, mayhem and Zooey Deschanel. Max Booth III's foray into the underbelly of life is like being sucker-punched by Tarantino. He offers a world where Desperation is is more than a state of despair, Jesus is a housefly determined to begin an apocalypse, and greed is a skewer that pierces the heart of the dammed.

This is one of those books that you start reading and instantly become absorbed in. I never felt that this was a story about horrible things happening to horrible people though. Maddox and Addison are just victims of their environment and the decisions they make are questionable but make perfect sense because they don't know any better. Max has created characters that you actually grow to like due to how stupid they can be. These characters and Booth's writing style make this one of those rare

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com I'm sorry. I didn't like it. I'd previously read How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers, and while it failed to deliver on the premise of its name, it was a nice enough read that I wanted to read Toxicity, too. Toxicity however, was toxic. I feel like I have lost over the last two years the enjoyment in the extreme bizarre, hardly fitted together kind of novel. This one was one of those. It features a lot of different POVs and characters,

Max’s Toxicity will make you laugh, cringe, and think ‘WTF, did I just read that?’, even as you blaze through page after page because you’ll want to know what happens next. Set in modern, gritty Chicago, this story’s violence contrasts with a troupe of immediately likable characters you wish you knew. Not that you’d loan them money or leave them in your car with the keys in the ignition, but you’ll enjoy spending time with them in this zany novel.First there’s Maddox, a former Cubs baseball play...

When Max Booth III asked me if I’d review Toxicity, I was very excited. I’ve been following Max’s career since he was writing short stories as a teenager. The first time we met at World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, I remember telling him “I think you’re brilliant,” a phrase I have used maybe three times in my life to describe living authors. I solicited a collaborative writing project from him right then and there, and though we’re slow going, I do still plan to write something amazing w...

The idea of “madcap noir” might be hard to wrap your head around, but that best describes what you’re in for inside this book. Deeply flawed characters engaged in ridiculous antics that often result in an ongoing series of bizarre events, usually accompanied by intense amounts of violence. And mind-shattering insanity. Don’t forget the reality-warping drugs.The story itself bounces back around between a number of characters all living in the vicinity of Loathing, Illinois. From Maddox Kane, just...