Heads Will Roll

Heads Will Roll by Kate McKinnon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In case you weren't already aware of my deep and abiding love for Kate McKinnon and everything she touches…you'll figure it out by the end of this review. She's a comedy goddess and I will not be swayed on this point! I have spoketh!

Right, ok…so Heads Will Roll is an audio drama written by McKinnon and her sister Emily Lynne. I only wish that my sister and I were half as creatively talented as these two because HOLY CRAP this was hilarious.

The "book" was broken into 10 stories and sort of felt like it was a serial originally or maybe a podcast. It has intro/outro music for each section.

The story follows Queen Mortuana and her faithful friend Jojo the girl cursed to be a Raven. Mortuana may or may not want to remain queen of the realm but she's at least going to try and keep her crown throughout the budding revolution. She journeys in search of the Shard of Acquiescence in order to quell the oncoming revolution.

There are a TON of celebrity voices in use in this book which include Tim Gunn as the Captain of the Guard and the Queer Eye Fab Five as the Sirens who will literally flatter you to death.

There were a couple of things that I didn't care for…the first being the dude who sleeps with Jojo while she's a Raven because he's got a fetish. If we're pretending that's not weird then I guess it's OK (and if you've heard this book already I hope you're picking up Jojo's voice when I say that). Also, there were plenty of side trips happening and since it's only a four hour production, it was a little hard to follow.

I would also recommend that you not listen at a faster than 1.0 speed. They already speak pretty fast as it is and it's super fast at any other speed.

I did have two favorite lines/parts. The first is when someone from the East brings Mortuana goods for sale and introduces her to salt and chocolate. It's a thirty one million price tag and the response is something to the effect of…"well that's the entire water supply budget for kingdom for the next year, but hey this is delicious so why not?". Also…"She's got to be home, she's a hermit…where else would she be?"

I love that more people are starting to create audiodramas. While I do love a good ol fashioned regular audiobook, to have the music and the sound effects on something like this definitely added to it.

But as with everything Kate McKinnon related…if you already don't like her, you'll hate this…so maybe don't bother with it.




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