Bob Ong's Ang Mga Kaibigan Ni Mama Susan

Or, What Not To Do When Facing Pretentious Powers From Beyond

This is my second Bob Ong book right after Lumayo Ka Nga Sa Akin, and while that other book was fun while it lasted, Ang Mga Kaibigan Ni Mama Susan was a thoroughly shitty experience. Bob Ong, last horror mo na 'to, ha?

The man should just stick to pop culture comedy instead of wasting his time, and more importantly, my time with this annoying sorry-excuse-for-a-novel that highlights what can only be called the cliched backward and barbaric mentality of remotely rural Filipinos: trusting in faith healing instead of modern medical science, listening to the inane ramblings of elder pieces of excrement, and believing in weird and outdated occult phenomenon.

All the complications in this book could have been avoided if the hero was man enough to hack his way through the members of the Kapatiran (Ooh, I'm soo scared--NOT!). Seriously, the moral lesson of this story is that you should not be a wimp when confronting the supernatural. That undead abomination that he calls his grandmother, a.k.a. Mama Susan? I would have smashed her with the gas lamp, laughing through the smoke as she and her so-called "friends" burned to oblivion. Oh yeah, I would have set that backward subhuman lost town right. Freaky supernatural shit? Show 'em who's the goddamn boss.

Maybe Bob Ong wasn't really trying to write horror with this one. With something this annoying, the man was definitely trolling. And, obviously, selling off bullshit to make his rent.

The only good thing about this book is that, thankfully, it is short: only a hundred and twenty odd pages. Because apparently that's the limit of his attention span, his intelligence, and his talent.