Tales from the Gas Station: Volume Three

Jack is back for a third round of adventures in what is easily the most confusing, and sadly, least enjoyable, book of the series. Jack’s hallucinations and general disconnect from reality has progressed to crisis proportions. In the previous books, we knew that Jack might not being seeing what he thought he saw, but in this one, that problem has become so severe that for huge chunks of the novel I wondered if we were in a delusional dream. That really wasn’t enjoyable. The novels are also getting longer and that became painful as we went through round after round of frustrating bizarreness.The book actually set itself up for an epic conclusion halfway through that just sort of petered away. Up until that point, I was fascinated with the story. People in town are being replaced by monsters and those monsters are trying to kill Jack. Jack, who actually has an impressive track record at destroying monsters for a guy who comes off as being nonviolent, discovers that these replacements are super hard to kill but slowly gets himself into a frame of mind and preparedness that doing so becomes routine. As if we needed more proof of how crazy he is becoming, he’s taking advice from the severed head of a friend on who is a monster and who isn’t. Time keeps resetting when he successfully kills one of the beasts so that he has to do it all again and again and again. And then for no discernable reason time stops resetting and the book finally moves forward again. It’s strange and bizarre and then doesn’t lead to a conclusion.There’s a lot of overt playing with Jack’s sense of reality that frankly was pretty well done except that it went on for way too long. And there is way too much of no one else remembering what is happening.On the plus side, we finally meet the Collector and figure out why he’s doing what he’s doing. I was surprised by his identity and that’s obviously a good thing. Jack also inherits the gas station in this volume and discovers that owning a small business is really hard. He also continues his clueless failure to notice that the only two women he knows both appear to want to have a relationship with him. It’s cute, but I have never understood why anyone would want to get into a relationship with Jack. He is overtly crazy and frankly not in anyway attuned to his friends’ needs.This book could have been great. It just needed some serious editing, maybe cutting out one-thirds of the length. Instead, it simply rambles—which makes sense considering Jack’s myriad psychological problems, but doesn’t make for the most enriching reading experience. I’m going to finish the series since I already have the last book, but I’m not sure I would have if I hadn’t already bought it.

I love this series, and the beginning of this volume in particular was absolutely amazing! It starts off like a cliché horror movie, except in this case it’s in the POV of a side character... but OUR main character of the book, Jack. It was hilarious!---“You guys know you’re in the middle of a bad story, don’t you?”“Whoa, dude,” said Liam. “Are you being, like, meta right now?”---But our self-aware Jack was done with their dumb antics pretty early on...---“STOP DOING EXPOSITION!” I shouted.---🤣 I loved this entire scene! This series is just fantastic! But I’ll tell you one thing: This book is no good to read out in public 😬 All I want to do is laugh out loud, so it was hard to read this and not burst out laughing. I adore the dark humor in this!---I wanted to scream at him “How is your head twisted all the way around like that!?” But I didn’t want to be rude in case it was some kind of medical condition, so I acted like it wasn’t the freakiest thing I’d seen all day.---Oh Jack, you’re so considerate 😂 I love Jack! He’s pretty chill when it comes to weird things... unless it’s a person whose head is twisted all the way around... Hey, a guy needs to have his limits, okay? Lol. But for being in danger so much—what with all the weirdness that goes on in the gas station—he does a pretty good job at staying alive. And that’s saying something because Jack is no fighter. In the last book, he literally threw a gun at a guy instead of using it the proper way... and then it took him a while to realize what he had done wrong 😂 He’s dumb sometimes, but he’s great!---Well that can’t be good. Did I turn into a vampire without noticing?---No, I decided. I can’t be a vampire. There must be something wrong with the mirror!---Oh, but he’s got NOTHING on Jerry! I adore Jerry, but OMG, how has he gotten this far in life being the airhead he is?? 😂---“Jerry!” I called.He looked back at me and responded, “Don’t worry, bro. I’m just gonna go investigate that mysterious noise coming from behind the strange curtain in the back of this dark tent next to the horror house where we found the dead body. I’ll be right back.”---😂Anyway, let’s get to more characters. Lol. Another character I love is Rosa! She also works at the gas station and she is just really sweet and thoughtful! In this book, Rosa seems to have a thing for Jack, and Jack was being SO dense about it. Lol. And while that was hilarious, I didn’t really ship them. I’m more on the Amelia/Jack ship. Just saying 😏I’m not gonna lie, the ending of this book was confusing AF! So many revelations were thrown at us that I didn’t even have time to process one thing before another revelation was dropped in our lap. It was crazy! This whole book was a crazy rollercoaster of a ride! And the only reason I’m not even mad at being confused at the end is because Jack was, too. Lol.---And not for the first time that week, or day, or hour, or even minute, I found myself wondering… What the hell is happening?---Same, Jack. Same. Lol. In this book, we get a little bit of an origin story as to why the gas station is so weird. I didn’t really get it, but the guy Jack was talking to promised we’d go into it more in book four 😂 Yeah, the guy broke the fourth wall. It was great! Lol. We also learn that all this weird stuff that’s happening is part of a bigger plan. This whole time I thought this series was more character-driven, but now it looks like we have a little bit of plot going on! Even though I don’t totally understand what the heck is really happening, I am very intrigued to see where the story goes from here. We found out some very interesting things in this one, and that ending was YIKES 😬So yeah, even though I was a little bit confused there at the end, I really loved this book! It’s really funny and I love all the characters and the wacky situations they find themselves in! There’s always a good amount of gore and the fights are really good! I wasn’t expecting it to be as heartbreaking as it was, as bleak as it got at one point, but I did appreciate it and the depth it gave Jack. I’m really looking forward to the next book and finally finding out what the heck is going on! Lol.

I love the writer and the series but I am missing pages. Very disappointing.

Not sure about the ending on this one but it's definitely just as good if not better than the other two books.

I freaking love these books! This genre... Whatever it is isn't my usual. I love horror and thriller\mystery maybe a romance every now and then, but I'm obsessed with these books and will be very sad when they end.Well, can a universe like this ever really end?

Good series but it seems to be missing about 10 pages, right in the peak of the book.....

I couldn’t put this series down. One of the most unique stories I’ve ever read. Imaginative and endlessly weird. I think Tales from the Gas Station would make an incredible TV series. As it stands, I really hope there is a book four on the way.

Bit of a deux ex machina ending but There were some genuinely funny moments in this instalment. This one gets pretty dark but ends on a high note.

So far, so good! I really hope there will be a fourth one (and some others, too). I really dig that weird story and its atypical characters!

perfectly sums up what February is.

The best.Love the story. Love the characters. Jerry is a hoot!Gotta pay attention though. It’s easy to get lost in the mayhem.Must have volume 4.