A review by readthesparrow
New Millennium Boyz by Alex Kazemi

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

(This review is based on a physical ARC sent by the publicist.)

REVIEW
This week, a family member asked what I was reading. When I described New Millenium Boyz, he said “that’s depressing.”

Here’s the thing: yes, it is. This book is a super downer. New Millenium Boyz dives straight into the deep end of Y2K teenage boyhood, toxic masculinity, school shooter culture, and every kind of bigotry under the sun, and never comes up for air. 

And I loved it.

New Millenium Boyz is set in 1999-2000, but it’s also a reflection of now. The specifics have changed–MTV isn’t what it once was, the internet is a whole different beast, and we’re twenty years further down the road of arts and culture.

However. MTV may be dead but the trend economy is alive and hungry on TikTok. An internet that is more and more video-based demands performance from its users. The ways that Lu and Brandon and Shane talk about women could come word for word from an Andrew Tate video. Liking things is a personality trait, and if you like the wrong things or don't like things the right way you are lesser than.

The cultural obsession with self-image and displaying ourselves for consumption have only festered since the days of Handicams and dial-up internet. Things intended to be private are demanded to be public; public image is everything; and gun violence has only gotten worse. 

New Millenium Boyz is one of those novels that by virtue of its thematics and content must be compared to American Psycho. American Psycho a useful touchstone–if you’re interested in New Millenium Boyz, you’ve almost certainly read it–so I’ll use that comparison here.

In terms of prose, both New Millenium Boyz and American Psycho use dialogue-driven prose and heavy cultural references. Unlike American Psycho, though, New Millenium Boyz does not dedicate chapters entirely to music reviews. New Millenium Boyz also includes several letters between Brad and his girlfriend, Aurora, which serve both as breaks as well as sharp psychological examinations of Brad’s cognitive dissonance.

Unlike American Psycho, New Millenium Boyz’s characters–especially Brad and Shane–have moments of deep empathy. They’re far more human and far more emotionally driven than Patrick Bateman, whose cold, calculated, and empty monologues are a stark contrast to Brad’s edgey, yet desperate, attempts at philosophizing. 

Additionally, while New Millenium Boyz is certainly violent, it does not reach the absurd intensity of American Psycho’s violence. New Millenium Boyz is primarily concerned with the violence of young white men’s words and sexuality. There are scenes of self-harm, hate crimes, animal abuse, and sexual assault, but not of serial murder or extreme bodily mutilation on the level of American Psycho. 

In a way, though, the violence of New Millenium Boyz is far more real–Patrick Bateman is so intense as to reach unreality, whereas Brad and Lu’s violence is something that a teenage boy could do–have done–and gotten away with. 

New Millenium Boyz is a book that portrays but does not glorify or endorse the horrible thoughts and actions of Brad and Lu and Shane. 

While writing this review, I read an excerpt from a interview by Kazemi. He says it best: “... [the Y2K edgelord ethos] makes people uncomfortable with the reality and the freedoms that people had back then. With our current political climate, people romanticize this freedom. But what I argue in the book [is] this kind of edgelord dialogue is actually really myopic, and it just sounds like white noise; it doesn't really add anything into the culture. I'm sort of exposing [that] this false freedom we thought we had back then was actually a prison in itself.” (https://www.cbc.ca/arts/commotion/why-this-novel-about-y2k-nostalgia-is-being-called-dangerous-1.6965442)

New Millennium Boyz responds to a sanitized Y2K nostalgia by ripping open the underbelly of Y2K toxicity and augering the entrails. What it finds is this: the misogyny and cruelty and racism and homophobia that festered in Y2K is alive and hungry.

FINAL THOUGHTS
New Millenium Boyz is a sharp fever dream of a book. If you like the breathless, dialogue-driven prose of American Psycho or the fever-dream hell of a Brian Evenson novel then I suggest you take a look at New Millenium Boyz.

That said, like American Psycho and Brian Evenson, New Millenium Boyz isn’t something I would recommend freely. It’s very dark, very intense, and does not flinch in the face of absolutely vile toxic white masculinity (Y2K flavor). 

I would only recommend New Millenium Boyz to those who know they can handle the content, are interested in extreme dark literary horror that satirizes toxic masculinity, and recommend that if needed, you check content warnings via Storygraph.

Thank you to the Void Collective and to the author for sending me a physical ARC! I’m very excited to see what Kazemi does next.

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