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A review by kyleofbooks
Me and the Devil by Nick Tosches
1.0
I'm going to be honest here, I skimmed the last 150 pages or so.
This was excrutiating. I have owned this book since its release, but only recently did I have the urge to read something truly wicked, wild, and dark. This novel was none of that. In fact, I found it exceedingly boring and aimless. I hated it. Actually, fuck past tense! I HATE it, and will continue hating it until I read something worthwhile to make me forget how utterly banal this novel is.
The whole story was laughable, albeit, unintentional I'm guessing on the author's part. I don't think Mr. Tosches expected much of what he had written (described as "edgy" and "dangerous") to elicit such chuckles. We have here with Me and the Devil a 60-year-old "writer" living in the LES of New York City. He has wires connecting false teeth he takes in and out, his skin is saggy, he drinks fancy drinks, he cooks and eats fancy food, he buys extravagant things, he judges the people he sees in his neighborhood from out his window in his fancy apartment...Nick Tosches wants you to know he's a polymath. It's the equivalent of going, "Look at all the crap I know shit about. Aren't I so well-learned?" "Look, look! I'm buying my meat from a special butcher and not 'Whole Foods' like everyone else, 'cause everyone else is stupid for buying things that I decree are unworthy and blahblahblah." This whole book angered me.
The narrator is overtly condescending, pretentious, pompous, misogynistic... he's an old hipster, passing judgment on people eating Dunkin Donuts and drinking cheap coffee, whereas he indulges in thick cut Irish bacon, quail eggs, salmon, and white truffles for breakfast. There was a passage early on where he's complaining about a woman at the butcher ordering "grass fed" beef, and he of course finds her insufferable because she just doesn't know that "grain fed" is better. He goes on to make superficial, rude comments on her older, heavily-made-up appearance. Pot meet kettle, much?
I haven't even arrived at the best part(s)! This pedantic 60-year-old supercilious fuck is the object of desire to many a-young (and I mean young) women. Apparently, intelligent, gorgeous girls in their early twenties find his smarmy lines fascinating, and that's all it takes to go to bed with him... and fucking let him bite their thighs and drink their blood! I just don't get it. He is obsessed with biting "young flesh" and drinking their blood, and they let him. And OBVIOUSLY the blood of younger women is better for his virility than the blood of older ladies... It happens quite often in this book, and I laughed every time I imagined this geriatric, vampiric jerk making girls moan with his incessant biting, hitting, fisting, etc. There is also casual talk of rape and violence against women, and weird run-ins with celebrities (who just happen to be friends with the author). I'm not even going to get into the cookie-cutter women of this book. They were dull and empty molds for the author to fill his fantasies with.
I am at a loss.
I am not being ageist, I should clarify. I just abhorred this MC who happens to be an older man.
I apologize if this review is jumping around and not very concise, but my anger is overshadowing my thought-process. Here, I will end what it seems is an overwrought rant, with my final words on this novel: It is self-gratifying drivel. It is not edgy. It is not fascinating. It is annoying, convoluted and smug.
This was excrutiating. I have owned this book since its release, but only recently did I have the urge to read something truly wicked, wild, and dark. This novel was none of that. In fact, I found it exceedingly boring and aimless. I hated it. Actually, fuck past tense! I HATE it, and will continue hating it until I read something worthwhile to make me forget how utterly banal this novel is.
The whole story was laughable, albeit, unintentional I'm guessing on the author's part. I don't think Mr. Tosches expected much of what he had written (described as "edgy" and "dangerous") to elicit such chuckles. We have here with Me and the Devil a 60-year-old "writer" living in the LES of New York City. He has wires connecting false teeth he takes in and out, his skin is saggy, he drinks fancy drinks, he cooks and eats fancy food, he buys extravagant things, he judges the people he sees in his neighborhood from out his window in his fancy apartment...Nick Tosches wants you to know he's a polymath. It's the equivalent of going, "Look at all the crap I know shit about. Aren't I so well-learned?" "Look, look! I'm buying my meat from a special butcher and not 'Whole Foods' like everyone else, 'cause everyone else is stupid for buying things that I decree are unworthy and blahblahblah." This whole book angered me.
The narrator is overtly condescending, pretentious, pompous, misogynistic... he's an old hipster, passing judgment on people eating Dunkin Donuts and drinking cheap coffee, whereas he indulges in thick cut Irish bacon, quail eggs, salmon, and white truffles for breakfast. There was a passage early on where he's complaining about a woman at the butcher ordering "grass fed" beef, and he of course finds her insufferable because she just doesn't know that "grain fed" is better. He goes on to make superficial, rude comments on her older, heavily-made-up appearance. Pot meet kettle, much?
I haven't even arrived at the best part(s)! This pedantic 60-year-old supercilious fuck is the object of desire to many a-young (and I mean young) women. Apparently, intelligent, gorgeous girls in their early twenties find his smarmy lines fascinating, and that's all it takes to go to bed with him... and fucking let him bite their thighs and drink their blood! I just don't get it. He is obsessed with biting "young flesh" and drinking their blood, and they let him. And OBVIOUSLY the blood of younger women is better for his virility than the blood of older ladies... It happens quite often in this book, and I laughed every time I imagined this geriatric, vampiric jerk making girls moan with his incessant biting, hitting, fisting, etc. There is also casual talk of rape and violence against women, and weird run-ins with celebrities (who just happen to be friends with the author). I'm not even going to get into the cookie-cutter women of this book. They were dull and empty molds for the author to fill his fantasies with.
I am at a loss.
I am not being ageist, I should clarify. I just abhorred this MC who happens to be an older man.
I apologize if this review is jumping around and not very concise, but my anger is overshadowing my thought-process. Here, I will end what it seems is an overwrought rant, with my final words on this novel: It is self-gratifying drivel. It is not edgy. It is not fascinating. It is annoying, convoluted and smug.