This one’s a bit of an oddball: the story of Isaac, night auditor in a hotel in Texas, spending his days sleeping and his nights in the drudgery of his job full of annoying customers, endless requests and weird happenings. And ‘weirder and weirder’ is how his nights become throughout the stories, from the moment he meets his new colleague Mandy who wants to pet an owl, and gets involved with Kia the bulimic homeless girl. Follows a gallery of shady characters, odd encounters, bodies piling up, and owls. (Yes, owls. The little creeps.)

I can’t tell whether I enjoyed this novel or not. It’s very bizarre, and Isaac’s descent into this half-believable, half-what-the-hell crazy world, was a mix of enjoyable and uncomfortable. (I it’s not the gory side that created that feeling for me, but the bulimic girl—to be fair, that’s probably because I myself have a history of eating disorders.)

On the other hand, the depiction of hotel jobs was quite funny, and the various circumstances Isaac had to fend through, from clogged toilets to murdered customers, even though somewhat unbelievable, had just enough of a touch of ‘based on something real’ for the surreal parts to flow in a... logical way, should I say? In that sort of inner logic pertaining the book.

Conclusion: 3 stars. Interesting and funny enough for me to probably try another novel by this author at some point.

What an amazing book! I devoured it!!! Hooked from the first page on!

I loved the dark humor mixed with horror. Characters were also awesome. Just. So. Good.

Highly recommended.

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Many, many thanks to the publisher who kindly provided a free copy for an honest and impartial review

We've all stayed inside those hotels where we felt that off-tilt tone in the air. We can hear the tone in the bathroom towels, getting coffee in the hotel lobby, and sleeping underneath those over-used sheets. Booth has written that exact tone and made it explode all over you with his wonderful wit, colorful characters, and dark humor. The Nightly Disease has done for the hotel business what the Jungle has done for the meat-packing business - he's pulled back the curtain on a common experience but made it not so common, but instead, oh so strange and interesting. Brilliantly fun, quirky characters and an ever-darkening plot. There's never a dull moment. Highly recommended.

Weird and Haunting

It is hard for me to write about this book. If you ask me, if I liked it, I have to say that I stopped reading it several times, but at least two days later I took it on again. The book is a mix of many things, sometimes funny, sometimes a crime story, sometimes really weird. Always there were some scenes that I caught me thinking about in the days I had put it away. So one could say it haunted me.
And I finished it, which means a lot, since I am quite able to put a half read book away if I am not happy with it.
So it seems I was happy with this one, even if I can not tell you why.
Best you can do is read it by yourself. Even if it is a bit of work, I am sure, in the end you will feel satisfied.

I read this in two non-stop hours. It was wonderful. Weird, out-there, hilarious and I never knew if what was going on was real or in Isaac's sleep deprived mind.

This was a great dark humor/horror book for me. I found it very interesting and couldn't wait to see where Isaac's decent would end.

Isaac is working the night shift at the Goddamn Hotel. He is equal parts bored and disgusted. Between guests that don't know how to flush toilets, to ones that demand he dispose of vomit and other equally gross items. When a new girl comes to work at the hotel and is interested in owls. That sparks his interest in them as well. Only the new girl doesn't expect what becomes of her obsession and it leads Isaac down a dark decent into hell, that makes him wish for his nice, quiet, boring night job again.

I was given an advanced eARC by the publisher through NetGalley.

Have you ever thought of working nights as an hotel auditor? After reading this dark but humorous novel, you may have second thoughts. I know I will not consider it as a serious second career. Issac is a night auditor. He is single, has no life outside of work except for his coworkers that work nights. At work, he runs the audit and watches Netflix. He doesn't like his job but it pays the rent. He also must respond to the guests requests regardless of what they are.

At times, I had difficulty reading this novel. I'm not exactly sure why. I think it was just a story that I found more sad than funny. It does have its funny parts.

I will keep an eye out for all future tales woven by Max Booth III.
Whoooooo? Max Booth III, ya stupid owl!

I absolutely loved this novel, is it bizarro fiction, yes! Is it entertaining, yes!
Is it original, yes?

I like owls more than ever.

My brief experience reading Max Booth III tells me that going into a Booth III read with any sort of pre-conceived notion or expectation is silly, and sets you up for a lifetime of ridicule. A Booth III read can go any number of directions at any given time, sometimes multiple directions at once. Like a menage-a-whatever, you get nothing less than half-again what you want and twice more than what you deserve, or can handle for that matter.

And what this cover tells me is that I am right in thinking that this book can, and will, go anywhere. Owls, man. Crazy.

I managed to keep up with this book in it's original from of release, that being serialized over the 31 days of October. Hitting most chapters at around midnight while at work, it seemed fitting given the subject matter, that of a less than spectacular man working the night shift. Replace a hotel environment with a big-box retail hardware store and it feels like part of my story. A lot of what Issac experiences rings true and I can relate to quite a bit of it.

I've never caught a customer making shoes in my store, but I have seen an unsavory person chewing their lips open mid conversation. Overdoses in the bathroom, check. Fights, ditto. Used adult diapers stashed behind product, human & animal feces smeared on the bathroom walls, flashing genitalia, death threats, chemical spills, tampons & condoms on the floor, intercourse. Yep, yep, yep, yep and yep. I'd say working the night or overnight shift is a whole new world but I really think that our world is a whole new world. We are devolving into a permanent late-shift mentality. Savage and beastly. The night shift experience is the new black and the new black fucking sucks.

The serial nature of The Nightly Disease's release made the read super easy to connect with. The characters are immensely entertaining and the situations are outrageous. Issac's descent into lucid madness is an experience to behold. The social commentary on human interaction is sharp enough to split hairs and pretty spot-on accurate. Sixty percent of the time people are shitty to each other all the time, especially when they have you in a position of having to serve they. People will try to strangle you with the slight bit of power they think they have over you. Every time.

The Nightly Disease is like a bible, maybe more accurately a field guide on the dangers of customer service. There aren't any surprise twists but unforeseen turns are everywhere bringing a potent energy to the book. It made me feel very unbalanced which made for a very fun reading experience.

Read The Nightly Disease, and anything else you can from Max Booth III. They are reads unlike any other.