My 'first pass' review (spoilers)

My opinions of Chuck books always change with subsequent reads, but here's my first take.

In short, pretty good with a rather dull non-ending. In long,

I enjoyed the writing style, it added a lot of humor, though I'm not sure I completely understand where it's coming from. If Pygmy is really as smart as he seems, you'd think he'd at least get ONE sentence grammatically correct. He quoted Americans just fine, and was there awhile, so it seems like he would have gotten better throughout the book.

On the same note, how can someone who does so well in an English-language spelling bee not know any words? Why did he call the toilet a spa in America when in his flashback he called it a toilet? So again, I enjoyed reading this style of writing, though I don't think it added any realism or immersion if that was the intent.

Main issue with this book was the seemingly-hurried ending. Nothing went anywhere. The brother had the note from Trevor, but that thread went nowhere, other than a mention that he went missing, and then he appears again during the fight. Why even write the letter from Trevor in? The klepto-sister plot goes nowhere other than to arrest the dad, which also gets unwritten in the last two pages. It's like Chuck got sick of the story and didn't want to think about it anymore so he just threw all the plot threads away and had Pygmy resign.

But other than the ending, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. The writing was hilarious, the musings and factoids were great, the commentary poignant, etc etc.

Makes my current Chuck-hierarchy (favorite to slightly less favorite):

Haunted
Diary
Choke
Fight Club
Survivor
Rant
Pygmy
Invisible Monsters
Lullaby
Snuff

I'll probably disagree with all of this in a week, but I like being able to look back and argue with past versions of myself.