A review by prlaw1517
All the Dirty Parts, by Daniel Handler
1.0
What on earth did I just read? Lacking the finesse I expected from Daniel Handler’s prose, All the Dirty Parts describes love found and lost from a sex addicted teenager.
The main character has no redeeming qualities. He is predatory towards girls, objectifies women, is dismissive towards his friends, etc. Yet he never learns that his misogynistic attitudes are wrong. He never grows up, not even the slightest.
I think this book could have been redeemed if Cole actually realized he had a problem—that he was addicted to sex and pornography. That’s a growing issue for young men today, and Handler could have written a book wherein young men reading it realize how their sex drives are warped by the over abundance of porn and the commodification of women’s bodies. But he didn’t write that book. Instead he wrote a “romance” with a flimsy female lead and an unredeemable ass of a male lead. What a disappointment.
The main character has no redeeming qualities. He is predatory towards girls, objectifies women, is dismissive towards his friends, etc. Yet he never learns that his misogynistic attitudes are wrong. He never grows up, not even the slightest.
I think this book could have been redeemed if Cole actually realized he had a problem—that he was addicted to sex and pornography. That’s a growing issue for young men today, and Handler could have written a book wherein young men reading it realize how their sex drives are warped by the over abundance of porn and the commodification of women’s bodies. But he didn’t write that book. Instead he wrote a “romance” with a flimsy female lead and an unredeemable ass of a male lead. What a disappointment.