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A review by yearofbluewater
The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler
2.0
I'm clearly not cut out for unreliable narrator books. I say this as a disclaimer: out of the four I've read, this one received the highest rating, which should be pretty telling.
This book was fun, at least at first. The slew of characters whose names I forgot to associate with personalities, the petty drama, the self-conscious pretentiousness... I even laughed out loud a few times.
And then at some point, something just switched. Suddenly,, people were crying all the damn time, and everyone was doing drugs. It was fine, though, and still relatively entertaining. Until the party, where absolutely everything went down the drain.
These are not oh-I-wonder-what-happened-after-the-story questions. These are not irrelevant-but-fun-to-speculate-about questions. These are questions necessary for a basic understanding of the story. And none of them were answered.
Unreliable narrators are one thing, open-to-interpretation endings are another thing, but this? This felt like lazy writing. I made all of that effort, and for what? A confusing everyone-is-drunk scene that was actually a total waste of tree pulp and people throwing up and panicking.
Honestly, I feel incredibly betrayed on a very deep level. When I read a book, I expect an author to tell me a complete story. They don't have to spoon-feed me plot and character development, but they need to give me something! As in, an actually satisfying ending. Or at least one where the most important questions throughout the novel get answered?!
I guess I'm more upset than I thought I was, but, thinking back on it, The Basic Eight is unacceptable. I refuse to accept it. I simply cannot accept a book that doesn't finish a story. The Basic Eight dangled a box in front of me, promised me it would tell me what was inside, then poured champagne on my head, hit me with a croquet mallet, and stuffed my expectations in the trunk of a car, which was then crushed and thrown into a volcano. And if you think that's melodramatic, then you haven't read even a single chapter of The Basic Eight and should therefore really not be reading this clearly marked spoiler.
In conclusion: the unsatisfying ending bumped this book down from 3.5 to roughly 2.5 stars. This was both my second and my last novel by Daniel Handler.
This book was fun, at least at first. The slew of characters whose names I forgot to associate with personalities, the petty drama, the self-conscious pretentiousness... I even laughed out loud a few times.
And then at some point, something just switched. Suddenly,
Spoiler
there was an actual rape involved (which apparently no one reported)Spoiler
We never found out anything at all. Who was Natasha? Why was Adam acting the way he was? Why did only Flan get in trouble for the murder? Why wasn't Flan convicted for poisoning Mr. Carr? Was Flora a member of the Basic Eight the whole time? Is Flan actually fat? Why didn't Flan- or any of the Basic Eight- even attempt to report Flan's rape? Where are any of their parents throughout this story? Why was Flan so infatuated with Adam to begin with, if they apparently only had one conversation? Why didn't we get any answers at all??These are not oh-I-wonder-what-happened-after-the-story questions. These are not irrelevant-but-fun-to-speculate-about questions. These are questions necessary for a basic understanding of the story. And none of them were answered.
Unreliable narrators are one thing, open-to-interpretation endings are another thing, but this? This felt like lazy writing. I made all of that effort, and for what? A confusing everyone-is-drunk scene that was actually a total waste of tree pulp and people throwing up and panicking.
Honestly, I feel incredibly betrayed on a very deep level. When I read a book, I expect an author to tell me a complete story. They don't have to spoon-feed me plot and character development, but they need to give me something! As in, an actually satisfying ending. Or at least one where the most important questions throughout the novel get answered?!
I guess I'm more upset than I thought I was, but, thinking back on it, The Basic Eight is unacceptable. I refuse to accept it. I simply cannot accept a book that doesn't finish a story. The Basic Eight dangled a box in front of me, promised me it would tell me what was inside, then poured champagne on my head, hit me with a croquet mallet, and stuffed my expectations in the trunk of a car, which was then crushed and thrown into a volcano. And if you think that's melodramatic, then you haven't read even a single chapter of The Basic Eight and should therefore really not be reading this clearly marked spoiler.
In conclusion: the unsatisfying ending bumped this book down from 3.5 to roughly 2.5 stars. This was both my second and my last novel by Daniel Handler.