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ezrasupremacy's review
5.0
4.5 ⭐️ rounded up
book 8/18 for my october horror reading challenge (still pretending!)
i loved this book. gross/fun/nauseating in the usual way, but even more deeply emotional. i very much hate to say this, but i related a lot to both ziggy and calhoun, and i felt incredibly attached to the two of them and both their individual stories and their joined one. being honest, i was a little teary eyed towards the end, which is a little crazy to me, but i really wished the two of them would get a happy ending together — not that i would ever expect to get that in a cooper novel.
anyway, this was my favourite of the george miles cycle so far, but i still have two more left to go, so we shall see if that impression still changes.
book 8/18 for my october horror reading challenge (still pretending!)
i loved this book. gross/fun/nauseating in the usual way, but even more deeply emotional. i very much hate to say this, but i related a lot to both ziggy and calhoun, and i felt incredibly attached to the two of them and both their individual stories and their joined one. being honest, i was a little teary eyed towards the end, which is a little crazy to me, but i really wished the two of them would get a happy ending together — not that i would ever expect to get that in a cooper novel.
anyway, this was my favourite of the george miles cycle so far, but i still have two more left to go, so we shall see if that impression still changes.
loki_the_gnome's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Dennis Cooper's "emotional" deconstruction of closer is as patently devastating as one could imagine. Every bit of coldness that marks his earlier work is destroyed in service of pure emotional turmoil. Idea's of people become people, violence has consequences outside of the physical, and every moment and interwoven storyline is somehow more devastating than the last.
Cooper's final lines have a tendency to make me cry, every one has so far. Try's not only made me cry, but totally gutted me. Every tiny bit of safety I somehow felt I could hold onto in Cooper's worlds was torn away from me - which is entirely by design. Fiction like Cooper's should never and could never be safe. It was never designed to comfort or placate, and it never has, but Try, somehow, manages to pierce one's heart even more in totality than anything the Cycle has offered before.
A patently gutting portrait of abuse and its after-effects. Highly empathetic and immensely human, in all it's ugly, ugly depravity in its contents and beautiful care in its construction.
Cooper's final lines have a tendency to make me cry, every one has so far. Try's not only made me cry, but totally gutted me. Every tiny bit of safety I somehow felt I could hold onto in Cooper's worlds was torn away from me - which is entirely by design. Fiction like Cooper's should never and could never be safe. It was never designed to comfort or placate, and it never has, but Try, somehow, manages to pierce one's heart even more in totality than anything the Cycle has offered before.
A patently gutting portrait of abuse and its after-effects. Highly empathetic and immensely human, in all it's ugly, ugly depravity in its contents and beautiful care in its construction.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Incest, Rape, Sexual assault, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Abandonment, and Domestic abuse
boomlight's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Whereas in Closer and Frisk Cooper took an analytical approach to his construction and deconstruction of image, Try grounds itself in an emotional reality that feels directly commentative on the fantasys that are built and deconstructed in the earlier cycle books. Theres a Cooper quote (cant remember it exactly) where he says Try is where he shows why he wouldn't act on his fantasies, thats a great way to explain it. Because this novel is much more grounded in an emotional realiry of the main characrer, with the same explorations we have seen of trauma, fetishization of murder, sex, drugs, etc. In Try we discover the real psychological damage thats inflicted upon each character. Its formalism is some of Cooper s best ive read, feeling like a much more explosive and loose (while also being more tightly constructed) version of Closer. Where we cut between different characters and their thoughts/reasonings and emotional struggles. With all that in mind it does make Try a much more difficult read (on the basis of its content). Because everything is real, when looking at Frisk, we have sections that are difficult, but exist to be deconstructed. Whereas in Try it feels as if every action has a direct influence on each amd every character, warped dynamics and their direct harm to the psychological health of our main character. Both the internal and external factors of addiction, both the construction of fantasy and deconstruction (through showing its external harm) by way of cutting between the 2. So we have a constant parallel of construction and deconstruction that sits along side the emotional outbursts of the entire novel which all leads up to its final catharsis/release in friendship/love/someone who even cares. Fuck Everything Else. Better than both Frisk and Closer in its pure honesty, Cooper still manages to be one of the best.
Its also interesting how this novel directly parallels closer (the structures are identical--while try is still much more frantic with it--they both cut between different characters), hiwever where in closer others built their image of george (which was deconstructed), George himself was an empty slate. The same happens in Try (though a tad bit more subtle) where others idolize and build their imahe of Ziggy, which is later deconstruxted. However, Ziggy is the polar opposite of an empty slate. Pure emotion, and images are deconstructed through this emotion. Genius
Its also interesting how this novel directly parallels closer (the structures are identical--while try is still much more frantic with it--they both cut between different characters), hiwever where in closer others built their image of george (which was deconstructed), George himself was an empty slate. The same happens in Try (though a tad bit more subtle) where others idolize and build their imahe of Ziggy, which is later deconstruxted. However, Ziggy is the polar opposite of an empty slate. Pure emotion, and images are deconstructed through this emotion. Genius
reubenlb's review
3.0
less overtly explicit but deeper and darker - reaches emotional points that the previous two don’t quite achieve
motifenjoyer's review
dark
reflective
4.0
"The kid was worried how stupid his screaming would look in the video."
s0on_'s review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
iantaylor's review
3.0
Each book of the George Miles Cycle shares the same grotesquely fascinating nature, as well as characters you can’t help but wish could escape from the hellish circumstances they exist in, but this particular volume was especially nauseating… like, in the literal sense. As in: I feel ill. I wanted so badly for Ziggy and Calhoun to be okay, but at the same time I don’t think I could ever pick this book back up… Which to a degree, is probably a portion of the point.
tcgarback's review
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Critical Score: B-
Personal Score: C
Lacking the horror and eroticism of Cooper’s best work, this one falls into the slush. It reads like a slightly more comprehensible version of Guide—which was published right after this one in the George Miles Cycle—and lacks bite.
The writing basically never moved me. His style works best when it’s blunt, bombastic, and appalling, not when it’s evasive, puzzling, and languid.
Having finished the cycle, I’ll rank them best to worst, and that’s easy to do because the gaps in quality between each are wide.
Frisk: a masterpiece
Closer: good literature
Try: underwhelming but serviceable
Guide: confusing, aimless, and forgettable
Period: far, far too avant-guard for me
Critical Score: B-
Personal Score: C
Lacking the horror and eroticism of Cooper’s best work, this one falls into the slush. It reads like a slightly more comprehensible version of Guide—which was published right after this one in the George Miles Cycle—and lacks bite.
The writing basically never moved me. His style works best when it’s blunt, bombastic, and appalling, not when it’s evasive, puzzling, and languid.
Having finished the cycle, I’ll rank them best to worst, and that’s easy to do because the gaps in quality between each are wide.
Frisk: a masterpiece
Closer: good literature
Try: underwhelming but serviceable
Guide: confusing, aimless, and forgettable
Period: far, far too avant-guard for me
lea_fuchs's review
4.0
Paedophilia, Abuse, Drugs, it‘s everything that you could want from a Dennis Cooper book.
grimondgalgmod's review
2.0
So I've read Dennis Cooper before and knew what I was getting into but wasn't ready to be annoyed by every character or the "authentic teenage language." Maybe I'm just too old now for this brand of edginess but, to quote the protagonist, um...whatever.