A review by lizfair
The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler

4.0

was in a friend group of 8 deranged gay people my senior year of high school and we totally would’ve done the same thing if we hosted house parties or did theater. first half was kind of boring but the absinthe poisoning in the middle sold me. i like that she killed adam because he was kind of a dick and not because he was a rapist or something which is where i thought the book was going after the absinthe business but i think it’s much better that she killed him for mostly no reason. the twist i’m ambivalent about but i do just love an extremely wounded woman committing a nonrighteous murder and that makes up for the book/writing being overly cheeky and honestly not that good. bumps it from 2.5 -> 3.5