Reviews

One of the craziest books I've ever read. I had never entered so deeply into the mind of a drug addict, especially as this protagonist is. simply visceral and uncomfortable.

Brilliant and heavy. Not an easy read, pretty depressing. Misses out on 5 stars as is slightly unfeeling, cold. Isn’t quite able to go as far as Trainspotting, but gets fucking close and is brilliant.

_macje_'s review against another edition

Go to review page

1.0

DNF at page 52. It's a real shame. I really wanted to enjoy this book. I hear of this book on list of disturbing literature, and I like disturbing literature. And I'm not saying that this book isn't disturbing. After all on the first page, of the prologue the main character, Bill, recounts how his nanny said smoking opium would bring "sweet dreams," and how he said "I will smoke opium when I grow up.

Isn't that just a haunting piece of literature? If only it was like that for the rest of the book. What is left is a tedious explanation on the various exploits of the main character trying to score drugs and the individuals that come in and out of his life. At times, the book almost seems to verge into an instruction manual on how to score drugs, which I will admit is interesting, but the novel is so devoid of emotion that I struggled to find it capturing my attention.

I will give that it is good recollection on the nature of drug addiction and the drug world, but ultimately it feels more like a non-fiction rather than fiction.
Which in itself is probably my fault. I was expecting this book to a lot different than what it actually is and that's most likely a causation of me being unobservant. But even if this book is semi-autobiographical, it is described in such a monotonous way that makes this man's struggle the least captivating thing I've read.

Which is a shame. I've annotated this book and I really expected to get something out of it. :(