Saturday, September 19, 2009

The Language of Fear, Book 1.5 of Angie and Christie's Reading and Blogging Project

I'd like to start off by saying how annoyed i am with the fact that the blog categories can include something dumb like podcasts, but not one about books and literature. HINT, HINT, Tom!

Now, on to the book.

I called this book "1.5" because it didn't quite qualify as #2. I read about 2/3 of it, and put it down for good. It's a book of short stories that i suppose are intended as horror, but simply came off as repugnant to my less-than-delicate sensibilities. I felt like Mr. James' goal was to shock and offend his readers as much as humanly possible; bravo, Mr. James! *golf clap* Mission accomplished.

The first story was about a heroin addict who tried to sell his prostitute girlfriend's toddler for drugs. He almost succeeded, but his girlfriend went over to the drug dealer's abode and got her back. This story was the best one i read, and i had high hopes for the rest of the book.

From there, those hopes were dashed against such subjects as incest, to-the-death cage fighting, wife killing at a phone prostitute's behest (actually that story wasn't bad either), more incest, teen suicide, some more incest (wtf?!), and finally, a guy killing his own dog. The guy killing the dog was the last straw for me, and i had no interest in reading any more after that.

I wouldn't call myself easy to offend. I wouldn't call myself sensitive. However, i simply don't enjoy a read where i feel like the author's entire intent is to gross me out on some level (usually more than one). If this is your bag, then this book is for you!

No comments: