The 3:00 a.m. Series, by Nick Pirog

ISBN: 9798503950120
Amazon ID: B01C2GFP5Y

Oh dear me, where do I start?

This book is bad in so many ways.

I'm going to completely overlook the ridiculous implausibility of someone having a disorder which means he falls asleep at 4:00am every day, in whatever the local timezone happens to be, and remains asleep for 23 hours.

The first bad thing about this book is how American-focused it is in terms of things you won't understand if you're not American, or familiar with various aspects of American life (or maybe the author's life?):

  • small forward (referring to some sort of sporting activity)
  • SATs - what does a score of 1420 mean? Is it good, bad, indifferent, what?
  • Asics - I don't think he's referring to application-specific integrated circuits, but I'm not sure what he is referring to
  • Advil
  • Icy Hot
  • string cheese
  • Ray Lewis
  • Reubens (some sort of sandwich)
  • Wolf Blitzer
  • Anderson Cooper
  • Bill O'Reilly
  • Charles Barkley
  • mood rings
  • a bright red Huffy (turns out to be a bicycle)
  • The Wall
  • Redenbacher (turns out to be popcorn)
  • Cliff Notes
  • Cranium (definitely not a reference to anyone's skull)
  • Brookstone

Why does the author feel the need to either use, or explain the meaning of, the word sternocleidomastoid? Okay, it's a perfectly correct word for the muscle being referred to, but either people know it already (so it doesn't need explaining), or they don't (in which case don't be distracting).

Some aspects of the grammar are just totally confusing, and I don't know whether this is standard American, or if the author just didn't read his own book. Some examples:

  • "a large sectional in the living room"
    • a large sectional what?
  • "I reach out and touch her arm." "She looks at my hand on her shoulder…"
    • so, did you touch her arm, or her shoulder? Can you not tell the difference?
  • "Wake, eat, GOT, stocks, read, run."
    • What's GOT?
  • "We were sitting down to do twenty minutes of algebra." "I didn't want to spend twenty of my precious minutes doing word problems…"
    • Er, what?
  • "Did you really need to bring Tweetledum and Tweetledee?"
    • Do the Americans really call them that? Lewis Carroll named them Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Some mistakes are clearly not Americanisms, just bad writing:

  • "I'd spent ten minutes pouring over the pages…"
    • No, don't bother to ask what he'd be pouring over the pages - the author means "poring" (which he uses correctly later in the book).
  • "My mother stands in front of six men, all of South American descent." "Her head faces the camera…"
    • So, has she craned her neck around to look at a camera behind her, or how do we know these men look South American?
  • "There are clean plates in front of all three, each marked by residual tomato sauce."
    • Well, that's not my idea of clean plates.
  • "He spent the next five minutes telling them what he could have summed up in three words: 'Everything is shut down'."
    • 1. Everything 2. is 3. shut 4. down. Hm.
  • "It was hard to breath with the gag in his mouth."
    • I think the author meant "breathe".
  • The phones are out (lines are down due to snow). There is no cellphone coverage. "We send emails to…"
    • Er, If you don't have a phone line and there's no cellphone coverage, how are you connected to the Internet?
  • "I just lost cell phone service." "The power outages took out a bunch of the cell towers." "Why is the video [on that laptop] still playing?" "The car has its own Wi-Fi."
    • Okay, so a car having a Wi-Fi network is all very well, but does it have a satellite link to the Internet, or what?
  • "They are from some agency called the CID. It means they are from the US Army Criminal Investigation Command."
    • So, er, that would be CIC, then?
  • "There is an article … which peaks my interest."
    • I sincerely hope other Americans can spell "piques" and know when to use it.
  • The owner of American Auto Parts Inc wears a polo shirt with AAI embroidered on it.
    • Eh? Why not AAP? Who cares about the Inc part?
  • "A CIA black op marauding as an investment firm.."
    • Hm, is it common to find investment firms marauding, or should the author have written "masquerading"?
  • "I would have spent the rest of my life behind bars. That is, if I didn't receive the death penalty."
    • Um, even if you did receive the death penalty, doesn't that still mean that you spend the rest of your life behind bars? Or do the Americans allow condemned prisoners out on bail?
  • "I open up the zip drive he's attached to the email."
    • Even if anyone still owns a zip drive, which seems unlikely, you can't attach one to an email.
  • Well-known fairy tales were apparently written by Hans Christian Anderson.
    • I think you'll find that's Andersen. He was Danish.
  • "Markus was staying at friend's house during the interview."
  • "And he was good dad?"
    • Seems like the author is trying to conserve vowels.

At one point a good deal of noise is being made in an apartment in the middle of the night, and the downstairs neighbours start banging on the walls. Eh? I would be banging on the ceiling if I lived downstairs from the disturbance.

Someone is lost / stranded at the side of a river which has frequent sandy banks, and decides to write a message in the sand so that any rescue aircraft can see it. He makes a point of sharpening a stick in order to write the message. Surely this makes the lines thinner, and therefore more difficult to see from the air, than using a blunt stick?

He later writes a second message comprising thirteen words. Either this is an enormous stretch of sand at the side of the river, or this won't be readable from more than 50 feet in the air.

The stories pretty soon involve a cat (named Lassie, of course?) and a dog - the things they are allowed / given to eat are absolutely atrocious. Anyone who treats animals like this should be fed worms, plankton and grass to see how they get on with a diet that's perfectly okay for some species, but not ideal for humans.

The animals are allowed to get away with extremely destructive behaviour, both in the homes where they live and in other premises when they visit (for no adequately explained reason).

The central character also has conversations with his cat. Now, I don't mind people talking to animals, but this book is written in such a way that entire conversations take place where one side is simply saying "Meow" every time, and the other side is claiming to understand complex concepts from this.

Oh, and the cat also apparently laughs, and cries (as in, sad tears, not crying out in distress).

The main character is in his late twenties, and "shaved with an electric razor in the shower every couple [of] days". I think I'm either impressed that the razor still works, or that the character is still alive.

The two biggest things I simply cannot cope with about this book, though, are that the central character's birthday is inconsistent (and not for any reason to do with the narrative), as is the spelling of the name of the president of the US (who is a character in the story, therefore his name comes up several times, and the spelling changes during the book).

In chapter two of book four, the central character states that he was born on the 12th of December 1978.

In chapter six of the same book, his birth certificate (which he claims to be familiar with) shows he was born on the 20th of March 1978.

The president starts out being Connor Sullivan and ends up being Conner Sullivan.

I can easily forgive any proofreader who was asked to go through this for abandoning the job early on.

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