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A review by shalanna
The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler
4.0
The Basic Eight is a sarcastic read about a group of high schoolers navigating their senior year. Throughout the book, I couldn't help but feel like Daniel Handler was making fun of the way our society raises and treats teenager, especially when one of them commits murder. (Winnie Moprah, perhaps a nod making fun of Oprah Winfrey???).
The group of friends seem like a narcissistic bunch who are close to each other, and yet are snarky and rude to one another under the guise of joking. They are an intelligent, sophisticated group of near adults, yet immature by miles. They host dinner parties all throughout the year and at the last party, a garden party at one of the Basic Eights homes, Flannery Culp, our unreliable narrator, murders a fellow student whom she has been crushing on the entire year. Culp is psychotic to the max and you can't ever trust what she writes down to tell you because she is oftentimes lying about what happened or how it actually happened. The book finally makes one final twist that for me, was not a surprise at all because I began to suspect early on. Whether you suspected this twist or not, it's still an interesting development that I wish Flannery would have spent more time elaborating on.
While there are some questionable parts of the book (i.e. the school immediately announces all kinds of details about the murder the very next day after the body is discovered), it is a good read that leaves you questioning your perspective of many things relating to the story. It makes me want to go back and read it again now that my suspicions about our lying narrator have been confirmed.
The group of friends seem like a narcissistic bunch who are close to each other, and yet are snarky and rude to one another under the guise of joking. They are an intelligent, sophisticated group of near adults, yet immature by miles. They host dinner parties all throughout the year and at the last party, a garden party at one of the Basic Eights homes, Flannery Culp, our unreliable narrator, murders a fellow student whom she has been crushing on the entire year. Culp is psychotic to the max and you can't ever trust what she writes down to tell you because she is oftentimes lying about what happened or how it actually happened. The book finally makes one final twist that for me, was not a surprise at all because I began to suspect early on. Whether you suspected this twist or not, it's still an interesting development that I wish Flannery would have spent more time elaborating on.
While there are some questionable parts of the book (i.e. the school immediately announces all kinds of details about the murder the very next day after the body is discovered), it is a good read that leaves you questioning your perspective of many things relating to the story. It makes me want to go back and read it again now that my suspicions about our lying narrator have been confirmed.