adelriesgo 's review for:

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

2.0

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Overall, this is a 1800’s version of American Psycho. Man obsessed with his image, slowly goes crazy, (spoilers) and ends up murdering. The book felt written very pretentiously. Maybe it was the time it was written, but there would be paragraphs that droned on and on and I realized I wasn’t even paying attention to what was happening. Sometimes it was good because the sensory descriptions made it feel like a movie… but at that point I rather be watching then reading (and I rarely say that). The saving grace was the audio book was voiced by a British man and they gay undertones were a breath of fresh air, but I wish there would have been more. 

I genuinely disliked Henry so much in this book, he made it hard to keep reading. His blatant sexism was nausea inducing. Beautiful = brainless, no woman is a genius, they are a decorative sex, woman are slaves and need to be dominated… just disgusting pig behavior. The only thing I agreed with him on is that he thinks men are more irrational than women. 

Dorian ended up so manipulative and cruel especially revolving around Syble, and later Basil. He was crazy and to be honest a major drama queen. 

This book was on my TBR list for a long time, so I’m glad I finally read it but it was majorly disappointing.