Reviews with content warning for Vomit - The Shards

This was well written, I just didn't like it. I didn't enjoy the gore and the tone or the people. I wanted to keep reading and that's pretty significant given what I didn't enjoy but also I'm so so glad I finally finished it. People who like thrillers may like this.

Also in regards to what happened (spoilers for ending)

I am like 100% sure in my mind at least that the trawler were the adult cult members and this was a story about a bunch of messed up kids left to their own devices too much, not cared for and adultified resulting in horrible conclusions. Everyone (of the children) was a victim here. The violent crime we see on page committed by a child is Brett murdering Robert. And that was a huge failure of every adult involved that let it get to that point. (And I know he's old enough to take responsibility for that somewhat but as with any crime in the real world committed by a 16 year old thecl context is so so important - and I know Robert has been accused of sexual abuse and I'm not absolving him from that responsibility but acknowledging that he was a victim here too from his father, and from the cult).

I don't think Brett attacked Susan and Thom, as it seems a bit random and out of character for him and it's more a further example of how things can are and will spiral in absence of I don't know, adult responsibility and supervision and putting it all on kids. The paranoia that seeped into their relationships and lack of trust for eachother and I think in the world generally to look after them.

They consistently had absent parents, drug addict parents, parents who are perpetrators of sexual abuse, alcoholic parents. The level of neglect is overwhelming, the absence of modeling of healthy interactions and relationships. The total lack of guidance from any adult in my opinion is what got them to where they ended up.

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aristarcodisamo's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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clichemarker's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

“Don’t you think he’s probably gay?” Thom stopped. “Don’t you think that’s his real problem?”

Good, but overly long.
He spoils elements of the book at the beginning, but it takes so long to get to them that I completely forgot what he had said.
This feels like a cautionary tale for nosey people.
The gore is sparse, and happens every hundred pages or so.

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gio__'s review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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emiliaborsikova's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Almost a dnf. The first half of this book is pretty much just buildup and an insight into the lives of the characters. Anything of specific significance happens in the last 70 pages. Which is terrible considering this book is 600 pages. Ultimately nothing happens except a bunch of privileged teenagers doing drugs, drinking and being rich. Except one day Bret, the narrator, randomly decides he thinks the new kid at school is a deranged psychopath murderer with very limited evidence (evidence being basically just delusion). For some reason Bret doesn’t actually believe his friendships are real and usually prefers to spend his time alone high on drugs. Half the book is basically him complaining about his supposedly perfect girlfriend who actually loves him but he’s gay and he is just using her, him doing drugs and drinking (everyone is so high all the time they apparently don’t care about girls being kidnapped and then them and animals/pets being brutally mutilated), graphic gay content, tireless music references and Susan being called numb every 3 lines. Not to mention that the dialogue is bland and vague. The Trawler is randomly introduced and a bunch of information is dumped on you before it’s back to random scenes of the characters. The Trawler and the home attacks and the cult didn’t have a clear connection and the narrative felt blocky. Most of the time the plot of Robert and The Trawler seemed like a side plot. It’s about 80% filler and buildup (towards pretty much nothing actually) and 20% shocking graphic descriptions of gore (of both humans and animals). This book could have been 200 pages shorter and as my first Bret Easton Ellis book i’m a bit disappointed. Spoiler- Not to mention that there’s some vague reference that Bret, the narrator, may actually be the psychopath here (the arm bite mark scene) which had no effect other than to confuse me- The end tries to explain everything at once and I just think that the plot had so much potential but it was executed very badly - overwritten and vain.

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3catsinatrenchcoat's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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chromiumboron's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

First and foremost, JUSTICE FOR SHINGY.

"When you talk to me you're really talking to yourself, dude."

This book is fucking brilliant. I was content to never pick up another Bret Easton Ellis novel, having read American Psycho and Knowing BEE has a penchant for causing visceral reactions. Even though there is still descriptive language that instigates a slow burning anxiety with sprinkles of the very shocking, we have fictional Bret to be on the same page with us about how disgusting the events are. It's brilliant to have yourself be the good guy who is reacting to the horrible things the real Bret is writing! "When you're talking to me, you're talking to yourself."

Overall, the descriptive language and level of detail in this book is what makes it. It honestly reminds me a lot of David Chase's work on The Sopranos. Did we need the level of detail that we got? Did I need to know about Tommy Tutone playing at the Pirates of the Caribbean Blue Bayou restaurant in Disneyland for Grad Nite? Did I need to know that Bret's aunt's house's foyer light was a Sputnik chandelier? Did that add anything to the plot? No. But BEE is genius at painting such a vivid picture, and it makes the slow anxiety burn more real.

Here are some other notes I made throughout my time reading, most of them just appreciation for the descriptive imagery and level of detail:

All the boys in our class were wearing Ralph Lauren Polo shirts in bold Easter-egg colors - pink and blue and green and purple . . .
- Really enjoyed this because it was something I used to say when I worked in Baker Systems at Ohio State to my coworkers. "You look like an Easter egg today." Polos abound.
The mention of Dominique Dunne's murder was a nice little add.
Matt had never felt about me the way I'd felt about him, which would be a recurring theme for the rest of my life though, of course, I didn't know this yet on that September afternoon in 1981, when I was seventeen and still navigated on hope.
- This got me good. It's so relatable. BEE does a great job at reminding us that these characters are in high school but, perhaps because it's narrated by older Bret, making sure we're still invested in them/aren't going to just brush them off because they're teenagers like maybe we normally would.
"What do they do?" Terry asked, glancing up at me as he kept eating. I didn't know how to answer this because it didn't matter to me what the characters did. They existed, and I just wanted to convey a mood, immerse a reader into a particular atmosphere that was built from carefully selected details.
- Man oh man, this is so meta! It's exactly what BEE is doing to us with this book. He's conveying a mood through a curated set of selected details.
When Terry is trying to get Bret to admit he's gay: "Well I'm not limited," was how I answered with what I thought was the right touch of diplomacy. "I mean, it depends." I tried to appear casual, offered a little shurg, and then nervously sipped my ginger ale in the gayness of Trumps.
- This got me good, too! I have also been in a situation where I'm trying to be chill about my queerness, and then felt EXTREMELY OBVIOUSLY GAY. This book is so queer and drops little hints about the queer experience, especially the beginning of reconciling with it, and I really appreciated that.
BEE did lose me for a little bit when he said that Stevie Nicks looked hungover and puffy and then went on to talk about how hot Lindsay Buckingham is (several times!). I know he's gay, but in this house we are team Stevie.
When Ryan says to Bret, "Dude, really? You were offended?" He sat up and looked at me, confused. "I'm sorry you're so sensitive." And then: "I'm just a guy." He smiled: dimples.
- This makes me SO ANGRY but is so well-written! This is exactly the kind of line that I would let a man say to me when I was seventeen. If someone talked to me like this today, I'd punch them in the throat.
This is the first moment that I can look back on in my life when I can locate the cluelessness of heterosexuals about gay men.
- This is also painfully relatable. Straight men don't know shit about shit, and it often makes them homophobic, even if they don't actually mean to be.
- And none of this had anything to do with Robert Mallory because, according to Thom, maybe Robert was gay, without realizing you had to be gay to understand that Robert Mallory most definitely wasn't gay . . .
  - Hilarious and relatable in a very similar way.
But then, I thought, as the fear started overriding my sadness: Who deserved anything? We get what we get.
- I don't really have a lot to say about this one. I was a little high when I read this book, and this stuck with me because I've been thinking a lot about the next steps for my life and what should I do etc etc etc, and who really does deserve anything?

Lastly - and this was something I enjoyed about American Psycho, as well - BEE is clearly a huge pop culture fan: Music, movies, books, essays. Again, the level of detail and helping to paint a more vivid picture for the reader. (Note to self: I made a playlist for the book here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0qzH120HnidiyGrTgrcJ7J?si=6768432d542c4ba5 ) The setting of this book - the time period, SoCal, the canyons, the music - is EXTREMELY my shit. I have been on a real Joni Mitchell/Crosby, Stills, & Nash/Roman Polanski/Mulholland Drive/Jack Nicholson & Angelica Huston/quaalude-era LA kick for the past year or so, and this fed right into that.

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