The Shards

At just under 600 pages, this book is that rare and precious thing: a good read. I don’t mean a page-turner that you whip through in an evening. This book accompanied me during my waking hours for days.  

Even though I was dealing with people I wouldn’t normally choose to spend time with–entitled teenagers from wealthy Los Angeles families with flashy cars and breathtaking access to illegal drugs–it didn’t matter. The author, who is (perhaps) also the narrator, knew how to make me care about Bret and his friends. I wanted to know what would happen to them next.  

The… show more.

This book, with its 80s soundtrack throughout, is a murder mystery set in the filmic hills of Los Angeles.

A killer is stalking the streets, mansions, and nightclubs, leaving a trail of youthful bodies across a nostalgic la-la land. Ostensibly a true story experienced by the author himself, the story is well paced and thrillingly told. Overall I found it a highly addictive read. It’s a lengthy book but I actually wanted more.

Ellis’s prose immediately pulled me in and allowed me to inhabit the world of early 80s LA, and even better, put me into the head of a seventeen-year-old boy.

Nostalgic and dark, the repetitiveness of thoughts and events was like falling into a whirlpool of experiences I could never have. It was the perfect combination of nightmare, beauty, and carnality. Ultimately, it took me out of my own life, deposited me somewhere fantastic, faded, gorgeous, and dangerous, and let me feel and think in a completely different way from my own. When I was done, I felt I could easily… show more.