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addyelk's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
fast-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
2.5
Hard to read. Didn’t hate it but it was hard to get through. the dialogue was supposed to be era specific but definitely slipped a lot. If you can stomach it, pretty good depiction of the early 2000s.
spenkevich's review against another edition
4.0
As culturally awash in irreverence and irony as it was clothed in stonewash jeans, what better way to tap into spirit on the 1990s US youth scene than to harness the profane towards something profound. Alex Kazemi’s sardonically satirical New Millenium Boyz comes violently alive as a 90s period piece—I’m sorry to anyone who may have grimaced thinking of the 90s as long enough ago for such a thing—that drags you through the darkness of the foul-mouthed, cynical toxic masculinity of an era right as the Columbine massacre is sending shockwaves through the country. This book, which has been targeted by book banners, is shocking itself, though the almost suffocating depictions of misogyny, homophobia and crass cruelty never feels played for shock value but rather an damning indictment of how such rampant vulgarity was normalized in many corners of society and only festered in its own filth as the expansion of internet access gave it a wider outlet. Dark and gruesome, New Millennium Boyz won’t be for everyone, nor does it need to be and—truthfully—there were times where the bluntness of its brutality had me questioning if it was even for me but I can’t deny I was strongly impacted by this and that the discomfort is part of the understand. Kazemi successfully captures the dark side of the 90s and pulls off a satirical cultural indictment in a novel that has created a bit of a scandal but ultimately reminds us to reject a toxic masculinity that teaches ‘caring is so embarrassing,’ or a romanticization of apathy and cruelty.
Before we go any further, I’d like to thank Permuted Press for providing me with a copy in exchange for a review and also apologize for my absurd tardiness in reviewing the book. I’d like to claim I was just being an unaffected cool 90s kid who didn’t believe in timelines but the truth is I’m trash at actually doing anything I should be reviewing. But I was intrigued when I saw the novel had been blurbed by [a:Bret Easton Ellis|2751|Bret Easton Ellis|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1638490234p2/2751.jpg] as ‘my favorite millennial provocateur.’ This is high praise from someone who has notably feuded with Millennials in the press, such as saying ‘what is millennial culture? … It kind of disturbs me,’ in an interview with The Sunday Times of London in 2019 before stating ‘where is the great millennial novel? There isn’t one.’ It seemed Ellis has now found one he can smile upon, and it is a smart blurb as it may seem lazy to compare this to Ellis’ works like [b:American Psycho|28676|American Psycho|Bret Easton Ellis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436934349l/28676._SY75_.jpg|2270060]—especially for the ever present immersion in pop culture, darkness, and violence in both books—but it’s also an accurate and productive comparison. I’m glad I read this as it isn’t one I’d probably have reached for, but I recall a time as a teen living amongst peers that talked and acted like many of the teens in this book and it would have fit right into the sort of “edgy” media I was consuming then.
What Kazemi does best is truly capture the vibes of the 90s, from the turmoil to the feelings of rapid change amidst great prosperity that tried to push aside the lower class while romanticizing being tough, edgy and disaffected. It was a time where the term “alternative” reigned supreme with Alternative music, alternative tv networks like MTV, alternatives to everything as the internet opened up access and going “against the grain” became the cool thing to do. Kazemi spent 10 years working on this novel, largely honing his skills to recreate the speech of teen boys and that comes across quite effectively. And while it is very pop-culture heavy—referencing the current culture was HUGE in the 90s—it isn’t kids saying “eat my shorts!” shouting “booyah” or saying “talk to the hand” but leaning in to the 90s cynicism of being as crass and profane as possible. This is the culture that made Bob Saget famous for saying the filthiest things possible, mind you, and whew the dialogue is indeed foul. You've been warned, but its presented this way for a much greater purpose than mere crassness.
I took a college course once on how media and culture reflect each other where I learned how the popular performance art of any era is a gold mine for cultural artifacts and commentary on values of that decade. I recall a lecture on the 90s leaning heavily on how shows like Seinfeld or Friends marked a shift from family-based sitcoms to one of “found family,” or how Seinfeld takes a rather mocking tone towards people outside their group and a lot of jokes barbed against ideas of inauthenticity. But we also have MTV, heavily present in this novel, which glamorized the lifestyles of the rich and famous while also bringing shows like Jackass which popularized pranks and handycam antics. The show featured a lot of fairly mean-spirited humor and people getting hurt for laughs, a social acceptance that Kazemi’s characters are intensely aware of. The character Lu, for instance, is never without his camera always hoping for the moment that will be his big break. It's through these cultural references we get to the heart of the issues. Kazemi spoke on this in an interview with Document Journal recently:
In the 90s it was the epitome of cool to be disaffected, ironic, self-referential and cynical with music and movies glamorizing the idea of the “cool loser” (Beck song Loser is very indicative of white culture at the time). Being authentic and “not a poser” or “a sellout” was championed. This image was something corporate marketing teams staffed by Boomers were pushing on teens, capturing the idea that sex and violence sells but then turning around and shaming teens for being too sexualized, too violent, too cynical and “ruining the national morality” sort of thing. It’s like in [a:Kurt Vonnegut|2778055|Kurt Vonnegut Jr.|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1433582280p2/2778055.jpg]’s [b:Cat's Cradle|386411|Cat's Cradle|Kurt Vonnegut Jr.|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1611053346l/386411._SY75_.jpg|1621115] where in order to control people they invent a religion and then ban it in order to ensure everyone will want to practice it in private rebellion.
I grew up too late to be amongst these characters, but I recognize in them the culture my friend’s older siblings lived in. ‘We romanticize that era for its simple truths,’ Kazemi says, ‘but there’s so much darkness in it.’ It was a time of great growth but also turmoil, which we can see in hindsight how the unsustainability of the era smashed its face into a brick wall of the new millennium as the dot com and housing bubbles burst and 9/11 changed everything. That spiral towards an inevitable bad end can be felt on every page here though. The story of New Millennium Boyz follows Brad as he realizes the normalcy of suburban life is always teetering on the edge of a cesspit of violence and debauchery. ‘What is the fucking point of being alive if my life doesn’t fit the vision I have of myself in my mind,’ he wonders and sets out to seek a fulfilling life. After a teen-movie-trope summer of camp, finding a sweet girlfriend and losing his virginity suddenly gives way to something more like a punk music video as he befriends Marilyn Manson-worshiping Shane and nihilistic Lu (which is either short for Luke or Lucifer) who will do anything to shock the system. But leading a double life of polite Brad and Badboy Brad becomes to much as the trio descend as far as possible beyond decency in hopes of overnight fame.
‘I’m becoming a prophet, an icon, and I don’t even have to move to Hollywood.’
What occurs is rather alarming and while it has shock value it is using the shock to expose and criticize. ‘I think that it could be interpreted that like, I just wrote a bunch of shock porn,’ Kazemi admits in an interview with Daily Beast, ‘But I think if you zoom out, I’m trying to talk about the escalation of the behavior and a culture that is sort of encouraging their worst impulses.’ If media and culture reflect each other back to each other, what we find here is a feedback loop amplifying itself into an ear piercing pitch of violence and cruelty that became so embedded in toxic masculinity.
You’ll remember exactly why it has become so necessary for a social pushback against misogyny, racism, homophobia and all the various bigotries that casually spew from the mouths of these characters. Not that times are perfect now, but it is unsettling to remember just how accurate the horrible language was even when I was in high school. And just using homophobic slurs so casually as a general insult. I’m also reminded of a song from the 90s from Third Eye Blind (who apparently are still a thing based on my google search just now) called Slow Motion. Deemed too vulgar to make the album—their album Blue contained an instrumental version that I liked to play on guitar with a friend who played the piano parts—the lyric version that appeared online does make me think of this book. The song is a litany of horrors, drugs and violence but ends as so:
Much in this way we see how this descent into the worst of human impulses are misguided teens internalizing media in a harmful way. After Columbine, which is present in the novel, everyone was quick to blame video games and music. ‘The Columbine era destroyed my entire career at the time,’ singer Marilyn Manson has said in interviews, his music largely being targeted as a “cause” of the violence. Much debate ensued at the time if media caused violence or exacerbated violent urges in kids and many concerts were cancelled. Mason argued this unfair blame only made it worse for kids who were already bullied for being different.
Similarly, author [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg]’s novel [b:Rage|66370|Rage|Richard Bachman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1649910417l/66370._SY75_.jpg|1657128], which he wrote in high school about a school shooting, was found to be on the reading list of multiple school shooters and lead him to discontinue publication of the book saying:
I bring this up because New Millennium Boyz has been found to be rather controversial, landing on book ban lists and being flagged by conservative content review website BookLooks—which is associated with the group the SPLC deemed a “hate group”, Moms For Liberty— as “a 5/5 aberrant content rating” with a 33-page document of pull-quotes as to why (read more on this here). The issue here is that representation is not the same as condoning and as already discussed the troubling aspects of the novel are intended to capture the ideas in order to criticize them, or, as Kazemi said in Interview Magazine, ‘there’s no sense of glamorization about any of it. I’m actually exposing it and reprimanding it.’ Which feels adjacent to the idea that media depicting violence begets violence and poses the question if representation of bigotry in order to push back against bigotry thereby begets bigotry.
A rather intense and uncomfortable book but for the sake of using the discomfort to examine a much more uncomfortable and violent cultural issue of the 90s, New Millennium Boyz is certainly a very affecting novel that achieves its goals. Rife with pop-culture references and a selection of songs that would rival any I Love the 90s CD, this plunges the reader through a horrific ride of 90s culture and cynicism where you can practically taste the soda-can bongs stuck with a needle everyone was smoking out of behind the high school. Thank you to Permuted Press for a chance to read and review.
⅘
Before we go any further, I’d like to thank Permuted Press for providing me with a copy in exchange for a review and also apologize for my absurd tardiness in reviewing the book. I’d like to claim I was just being an unaffected cool 90s kid who didn’t believe in timelines but the truth is I’m trash at actually doing anything I should be reviewing. But I was intrigued when I saw the novel had been blurbed by [a:Bret Easton Ellis|2751|Bret Easton Ellis|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1638490234p2/2751.jpg] as ‘my favorite millennial provocateur.’ This is high praise from someone who has notably feuded with Millennials in the press, such as saying ‘what is millennial culture? … It kind of disturbs me,’ in an interview with The Sunday Times of London in 2019 before stating ‘where is the great millennial novel? There isn’t one.’ It seemed Ellis has now found one he can smile upon, and it is a smart blurb as it may seem lazy to compare this to Ellis’ works like [b:American Psycho|28676|American Psycho|Bret Easton Ellis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436934349l/28676._SY75_.jpg|2270060]—especially for the ever present immersion in pop culture, darkness, and violence in both books—but it’s also an accurate and productive comparison. I’m glad I read this as it isn’t one I’d probably have reached for, but I recall a time as a teen living amongst peers that talked and acted like many of the teens in this book and it would have fit right into the sort of “edgy” media I was consuming then.
What Kazemi does best is truly capture the vibes of the 90s, from the turmoil to the feelings of rapid change amidst great prosperity that tried to push aside the lower class while romanticizing being tough, edgy and disaffected. It was a time where the term “alternative” reigned supreme with Alternative music, alternative tv networks like MTV, alternatives to everything as the internet opened up access and going “against the grain” became the cool thing to do. Kazemi spent 10 years working on this novel, largely honing his skills to recreate the speech of teen boys and that comes across quite effectively. And while it is very pop-culture heavy—referencing the current culture was HUGE in the 90s—it isn’t kids saying “eat my shorts!” shouting “booyah” or saying “talk to the hand” but leaning in to the 90s cynicism of being as crass and profane as possible. This is the culture that made Bob Saget famous for saying the filthiest things possible, mind you, and whew the dialogue is indeed foul. You've been warned, but its presented this way for a much greater purpose than mere crassness.
I took a college course once on how media and culture reflect each other where I learned how the popular performance art of any era is a gold mine for cultural artifacts and commentary on values of that decade. I recall a lecture on the 90s leaning heavily on how shows like Seinfeld or Friends marked a shift from family-based sitcoms to one of “found family,” or how Seinfeld takes a rather mocking tone towards people outside their group and a lot of jokes barbed against ideas of inauthenticity. But we also have MTV, heavily present in this novel, which glamorized the lifestyles of the rich and famous while also bringing shows like Jackass which popularized pranks and handycam antics. The show featured a lot of fairly mean-spirited humor and people getting hurt for laughs, a social acceptance that Kazemi’s characters are intensely aware of. The character Lu, for instance, is never without his camera always hoping for the moment that will be his big break. It's through these cultural references we get to the heart of the issues. Kazemi spoke on this in an interview with Document Journal recently:
‘ I wanted to mock and satirize, and pop culture became a vehicle to do that. Obviously, I take it to such an absurdist, exhausting degree to depict how brainwashed millennials were by corporate Boomer pop culture.’
In the 90s it was the epitome of cool to be disaffected, ironic, self-referential and cynical with music and movies glamorizing the idea of the “cool loser” (Beck song Loser is very indicative of white culture at the time). Being authentic and “not a poser” or “a sellout” was championed. This image was something corporate marketing teams staffed by Boomers were pushing on teens, capturing the idea that sex and violence sells but then turning around and shaming teens for being too sexualized, too violent, too cynical and “ruining the national morality” sort of thing. It’s like in [a:Kurt Vonnegut|2778055|Kurt Vonnegut Jr.|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1433582280p2/2778055.jpg]’s [b:Cat's Cradle|386411|Cat's Cradle|Kurt Vonnegut Jr.|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1611053346l/386411._SY75_.jpg|1621115] where in order to control people they invent a religion and then ban it in order to ensure everyone will want to practice it in private rebellion.
I grew up too late to be amongst these characters, but I recognize in them the culture my friend’s older siblings lived in. ‘We romanticize that era for its simple truths,’ Kazemi says, ‘but there’s so much darkness in it.’ It was a time of great growth but also turmoil, which we can see in hindsight how the unsustainability of the era smashed its face into a brick wall of the new millennium as the dot com and housing bubbles burst and 9/11 changed everything. That spiral towards an inevitable bad end can be felt on every page here though. The story of New Millennium Boyz follows Brad as he realizes the normalcy of suburban life is always teetering on the edge of a cesspit of violence and debauchery. ‘What is the fucking point of being alive if my life doesn’t fit the vision I have of myself in my mind,’ he wonders and sets out to seek a fulfilling life. After a teen-movie-trope summer of camp, finding a sweet girlfriend and losing his virginity suddenly gives way to something more like a punk music video as he befriends Marilyn Manson-worshiping Shane and nihilistic Lu (which is either short for Luke or Lucifer) who will do anything to shock the system. But leading a double life of polite Brad and Badboy Brad becomes to much as the trio descend as far as possible beyond decency in hopes of overnight fame.
‘I’m becoming a prophet, an icon, and I don’t even have to move to Hollywood.’
What occurs is rather alarming and while it has shock value it is using the shock to expose and criticize. ‘I think that it could be interpreted that like, I just wrote a bunch of shock porn,’ Kazemi admits in an interview with Daily Beast, ‘But I think if you zoom out, I’m trying to talk about the escalation of the behavior and a culture that is sort of encouraging their worst impulses.’ If media and culture reflect each other back to each other, what we find here is a feedback loop amplifying itself into an ear piercing pitch of violence and cruelty that became so embedded in toxic masculinity.
‘I think, because a lot of my generation likes to romanticize goth culture—Manson, Nine Inch Nails and stuff—I wanted to expose it for being just another aspect of the ‘bro’ culture. You know, just cause Manson was wearing lipstick and all, it doesn’t change the fact that he was a part of that very male culture.’
You’ll remember exactly why it has become so necessary for a social pushback against misogyny, racism, homophobia and all the various bigotries that casually spew from the mouths of these characters. Not that times are perfect now, but it is unsettling to remember just how accurate the horrible language was even when I was in high school. And just using homophobic slurs so casually as a general insult. I’m also reminded of a song from the 90s from Third Eye Blind (who apparently are still a thing based on my google search just now) called Slow Motion. Deemed too vulgar to make the album—their album Blue contained an instrumental version that I liked to play on guitar with a friend who played the piano parts—the lyric version that appeared online does make me think of this book. The song is a litany of horrors, drugs and violence but ends as so:
’Hollywood glamorized my wrath
I'm the young urban psychopath
I incite murder
For your entertainment
'Cause I needed the money
What's your excuse?
The jokes on you’
Much in this way we see how this descent into the worst of human impulses are misguided teens internalizing media in a harmful way. After Columbine, which is present in the novel, everyone was quick to blame video games and music. ‘The Columbine era destroyed my entire career at the time,’ singer Marilyn Manson has said in interviews, his music largely being targeted as a “cause” of the violence. Much debate ensued at the time if media caused violence or exacerbated violent urges in kids and many concerts were cancelled. Mason argued this unfair blame only made it worse for kids who were already bullied for being different.
‘The media has unfairly scapegoated the music industry and so-called Goth kids and has speculated, with no basis in truth, that artists like myself are in some way to blame. This tragedy was a product of ignorance, hatred and an access to guns. I hope the media's irresponsible finger-pointing doesn't create more discrimination against kids who look different.’
Similarly, author [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg]’s novel [b:Rage|66370|Rage|Richard Bachman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1649910417l/66370._SY75_.jpg|1657128], which he wrote in high school about a school shooting, was found to be on the reading list of multiple school shooters and lead him to discontinue publication of the book saying:
‘My book did not break [these teenagers] or turn them into killers; they found something in my book that spoke to them, because they were already broken…Yet I did see ‘Rage’ as a possible accelerant, which is why I pulled it from sale. You don’t leave a can of gasoline where a boy with firebug tendencies can lay hands on it.’
I bring this up because New Millennium Boyz has been found to be rather controversial, landing on book ban lists and being flagged by conservative content review website BookLooks—which is associated with the group the SPLC deemed a “hate group”, Moms For Liberty— as “a 5/5 aberrant content rating” with a 33-page document of pull-quotes as to why (read more on this here). The issue here is that representation is not the same as condoning and as already discussed the troubling aspects of the novel are intended to capture the ideas in order to criticize them, or, as Kazemi said in Interview Magazine, ‘there’s no sense of glamorization about any of it. I’m actually exposing it and reprimanding it.’ Which feels adjacent to the idea that media depicting violence begets violence and poses the question if representation of bigotry in order to push back against bigotry thereby begets bigotry.
A rather intense and uncomfortable book but for the sake of using the discomfort to examine a much more uncomfortable and violent cultural issue of the 90s, New Millennium Boyz is certainly a very affecting novel that achieves its goals. Rife with pop-culture references and a selection of songs that would rival any I Love the 90s CD, this plunges the reader through a horrific ride of 90s culture and cynicism where you can practically taste the soda-can bongs stuck with a needle everyone was smoking out of behind the high school. Thank you to Permuted Press for a chance to read and review.
⅘
em_jay's review against another edition
3.0
I am not the target demographic audience for this book. If I were 15 years younger, then maybe. While some of the nostalgia was fun, it was overdone with the pop culture of the time. The book was fun at points and did have some endearing moments but the overall vibe just wasn’t for me. Three starts for putting the effort forward and for pulling out so many weird and random 90’s references.
melineegout's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
mirrorblackout's review against another edition
dark
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
dellamortedellamandy's review
3.0
3 stars solely for the 90s nostaglia because i am a nostaglia-slut. i was 9 years old in 1999 and man did i want so badly to be a teenager in the 90s. but this just didn’t hit like i wanted it to! loved reading PZB’s name come up a few times though!
combat_baby's review against another edition
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5