Join Me is a quite astonishing and true account of Danny Wallace’s ambitions to realise his late uncle’s dreams of creating a utopian society. His uncle’s attempts to get the villagers to join in him in creating a new society resulted in a modest result. By comparison, Danny Wallace started a cult, even though his protestations persist that it was never a cult, but a collective.

Having worked to earn money, Danny has decided to take it upon himself to follow this dream and to avoid working and therefore earning his bread and butter. He spends all his time in making Join Me work, and begins with a single ad in a newspaper requesting a passport sized photograph and a description of who they are. Out of sheer surprise, Wallace receives a letter as per his instructions with a passport sized photograph, a letter and a takeaway pamphlet which is announced in the letter as being one of the best. Reality turns out to be a little different, particularly when he takes his girlfriend to the takeaway restaurant only to find it’s not a restaurant but a takeaway, and a skanky one at that.

The beauty of Join Me is Wallace’s down to Earth writing style, which engages you without coming across as pretentious, and always offering humour in even the direst situations. As you read, you become involved in Wallace’s journey to realise his uncle’s dream, and how honestly he believes in the cause. Of course, at first he has no realisation what it is he’s trying to do, as he simply asks people to join him, and they do en masse. It’s only when people start to question his motives that he decides that action needs to be taken to take his collective (not a cult) into a direction where people would be satisfied in the cause.

Wallace never shy’s away from the heart breaking decisions he makes. In many ways he is both hero and villain in equal measure

It is as astonishing as it is real, with pictures, newspaper articles and woes all entangled into a laugh by page, entertaining series of adventures for both Wallace and his companions. Even in the face of adversity with the lack of faith his friends have, and also the realisation that his own relationship hinges on the decision to pursue his love for the collective, or his love for his woman, Wallace never shy’s away from the heart breaking decisions he makes. In many ways he is both hero and villain in equal measure, but more of the former for the bare honesty he lays out across the pages.

With such a collective growing, we soon find different characters that make their appearence, including one who potentially could steal his collective and create a new collective, which is both hilarious and gripping in a thrilling sense. We even have a rather untypical priest who listens to heavy metal making his name in the papers, and becoming part of a collective, as he explains how it’s not a conflict with his own beliefs.

Join Me is an amazing book, because so many people joined one person’s collective, who himself was doing this for someone else’s dream, sacrificing and putting on line his relationship with his girlfriend, with a psycho rival collective perhaps boiling underneath his own and mixing it with a humour that has you smiling from end to end.

Verdict: A fascinating look into an unemployed lifestyle turned cult superstar. Read it and enjoy it