About the Book

Who can you trust when you can’t even trust yourself?

Benton Kirby’s life hasn’t exactly gone to plan. This is hardly surprising, however, as he never really had one in the first place. Armed with a philosophy degree, a dead fiancé, a brother who drives death around London in his black cab, and a girlfriend with a history of suicidal pets, Benton – ambitionless and emotionally disengaged – embarks, for no apparent reason, on an affair with a beautiful, sexually adventurous, Korean virgin.

Following a strange snowballing of even stranger events, he finds himself, at last, exactly not where he ever imagined he would be, up a tree at night in the park with a hedgehog.

My Thoughts

Okay, I admit it. I bought the book because of the title. I mean, who could resist a title like that?

Then there was the blurb from Douglas Coupland on the cover.

It’s totally f**king brilliant.I love it.

Did I mention the cover? It’s a brilliant one. There are lots of little figures on, above and in each of the letters, and once you start reading the book, you realise that the entire story is laid out there on the first thing you see, one of my favourite covers for a long time.

And then there is that wonderfully surreal sounding synopsis.

Everything about it, screamed BUY ME! I’m a 5 star read.

Unfortunately, it never really lives up to it’s potential. There are parts of it that work, they’re moving, eccentric and incredibly funny, but then, there are even more bits which go absolutely nowhere, and do nothing for the narrative. An example would be Benton’s brother’s cab passenger, much could be done with it, and yet it only really comes in to play just the once. And even worse, it descends in to puerile and needless sexual bawdiness.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been guilty of the odd puerile comment myself , so it wasn’t that I was offended by it, it just felt, however, like it was there simply for titillation.

I also never liked the main character enough – he does some fairly reprehensible acts – to actually really care what happened to him at the end.

But as I say – just in case it seems like I’m only pointing out what didn’t work – there is some decent writing in there as well, it’s has a irreverent prose and was enjoyable enough that I’ll be looking out from this author in the future.

Rating:

So, have you, ever bought a book, purely on the basis of it’s title? And did it live up to it?