read read read read read

I’m almost done with the fourth Harry Potter! Evidently I do well with series.

by chad kultgen

I judged a book by its cover yesterday and bought it at the big sale at Daedalus. It had a giant sticker on the front about a sexual content warning, but I had already assumed as much, judging by the title. I really liked the black and white design of the cover but did NOT like the blurbs on the back by apparent screennames?! Yet another blurb boasted it was “the book that sparked a youtube frenzy.” But the design was good, the first line-glance was good so I gulped and did it.

I read it all last night, not because it was good but because it was a quick, very very quick read. I can see women being more offended by this novel than anything Bukowski could ever do (and I often get reamed for having every Buk novel on my shelf when gals peruse my library), but I like to take things in stride. Men are really like this, yes, they generally think about and want sex every second of every day. Not all of them, of course, but the average. When they’re not playing video games, but even sometimes when they’re playing video games. I did have a slight issue with how he portrayed gay men in the novel, but there was also some truth to it.

Basic plot. Unnamed narrator (I bet the author really liked Fight Club!) is with girlfriend of one year Casey until someone better comes along, feeling nothing and actually somewhat disliking her as he fantasizes about sexing up literally every woman that comes across his path. On a flight back to LA after visiting parents for xmas, something better does: she’s a smaller-assed, pertier-breasted and younger woman named Alyna. After a rushed phone call setting up a date with this other woman, Casey tricks narrator into getting engaged (seriously) and then she resorts to more trickery to stay that way. Eventually, things become a mess and poor little unemotional fratastic narrator has to Deal With It. I enjoyed the commentary on how most men really think and reluctantly agree with his assessment of how most women are—even the ones you fall for because “they’re not like everyone else” turn out to be just like the others in the end. You both end up bored, disinterested, making excuses….

“It will never be like it was. It will never be better than this.”

Three cups of tea…............am having a hard time “getting into ” this book for some reason. Everyone I mention it to ” just loves it ! ” I guess I need to give it another try before shelving it.

I read all the Sookie Stackhouse books in a week. This was not really what I had in mind.

Recently read:
Globetrotter Dogma
Prozac Nation

Currently reading:
Tropic of Cancer
a bunch of self-help books M has thrust upon me (in a nice way)

Ordered:
Crave – Sarah Kane

What fun, what a mirror—both good and bad.
Brooding teen boy obsesses (in a writerly way) over girl named Rachel while studying for entrance to university. Pet recommends!

Bonus! I have netflixed the film based on the book and your Jolly James Spader is in it! Perfection.

Quotes: (and, admittedly some of them are meaningless, I just like how he strings words together)

London is where people go in order to come back from it sadder and wiser.

I am in my own appearance if anything rather oppressively Caucasian.

To my right, dentures clicking like castanets, an old man chopped through a hot-dog at insect speed.

I felt mournful, squelchy.

I wanted to ask my host if there were perhaps any broom-cupboards or disused lavatories he wouldn’t mind me locking myself into until the party was over.

Like most people, I feel ambiguous guilt for my inferiors, ambiguous envy for my superiors, and mandatory low-spirits about the whole system itself.

Thus I maintained a tripartite sexual application in the contrapuntal patterns.

One of the troubles with being over-articulate, with having a vocabulary more refined than your emotions, is that every turn in the conversation, every switch of posture, opens up an estate of verbal avenues with a myriad side-turnings and cul-de-sacs—and there are no signposts but your own sincerity and good taste, and I’ve never had much of either.

Still Alice…........ fantastic! I read it in one day, just couldn’t put it down and as soon as I finished it I started thinking…....who will I lend it to first? LOVED IT!

I finally finished this as well. I found it very disturbing especially the ending! It was well written, but I am not sure if I would reccommend it. I felt almost depressed when I finished it.

Really liked this book. :)

Finished it and loved it. Wasn’t one of my all time favorites but it certainly inspired me to get out there and do something adventurous :)

Martin Amis

The third Novel of Amis that I have cracked, and the only one I’ve finished. It was crafty and clever—masterfully done. I seem to enjoy novels which make me cringe the whole way through. This cringe-fest was brought on by the splicing of two completely divergent lives in a tiny apartment built for one. Terry v. Gregory in a sinister battle of the sister. There can only be one winner…

effluria
chasuble
appurtenances
cynosure
virilia
furore
vestigal
telegenic
reticule
axiomatic
petallic
verdured
quiescent
perfidiously
catamile
eyrie
coevals