Cat
I disagree with the many who disliked this book. The fact that the protagonist is a well-off, white girl with an education doesn't make her feelings nor her story non-valid.
Not Eugenides' most gripping work, but still astounding in its ability to take the reader into a character's unique, inner life.
⁷Trashy trash trash.
If you like reading sentences like:
“[he was] always wearing... a splash of his signature, babe-luring, Paco Rabanne XS”
or if you feel that using ‘you know what it is, my friend, it's a fucking knife and it's for putting in the neck of Marco,' as a direct quote in what, for all extents and purposes, is a reconstruction of something no camera or microphone has ever recorded qualifies as journalism - then this book is for you.
Putting the frequent use of profanities and the use of trashy language and casual sexism aside for a minute, the fact is there is nothing much to learn from this book.
Drug dealers all become drug dealers at some point, they all easily get inflated egos, they all end up getting reckless and screwing up.
Drugs are packed in surfboard bags, booms, sportscars' spoilers.
Knives are drawn, lives are threatened, a lot of cocaine is blown.
All groundbreaking revelations, I'm sure.
To be fair, the book flaunts the line ‘the incredible inside account of Bali's hidden drug world' on its cover, so it's not doing much to position itself as Pulitzer material.
I picked this up on my way back from Indonesia, fraught with first-world guilt and seriously astounded at how criminal and illegal activities are pretty much carried out in broad daylight.
I looked to educate myself on the inner workings of such a system but this book did nothing for me.
This was difficult to rate.
Tara's storyline is winding and the editing is inconsistent.
The first half of the book reads as if it were a written version of Final Destination, but with a family of Mormon fundamentalists for protagonists: who will be torn apart, burned or mangled next?
The second half is what made me give this four stars: the tale of how the main character ultimately saves herself from decades of gaslighting and psychological abuse is worth the read.
‘Alla dinosaurier hade ADHD.
De hade både Aspergers, tvångssyndrom, trotssyndrom och ADHD. Det var därför som de dog ut. De hade för många tankar i huvudet och kunde inte koncentrera dig och så blev de fuckinh asgalna på alla störande ljud.' - citat Beata Ernman Thunberg.
Boken kan vara rolig men är sällan så. Läsvärd.
