Magnificent read! This book takes you down a brilliant path of self-destruction. Funny, bizarre and everything made possible. The self-loathing and self-idolizing main character takes you along on his trip into the most decadent of all worlds. This only because he has lost grip on his youthful idealism. When I was wondering if I would ever give a book five stars again I came upon this twisted, satirical narrative which showed me once again the apparatus of modern life.
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This book is downright AMAZING! It was an entertaining journey of hilarity, sincerity and inspiration. This book was one of the main driving forces between helping me choose to stay home and get a big boy job or go out and explore the world.
The book starts with the story's narrator informing you the read that he is about to kill himself. Well, ok I am now hooked, tell me more!
It continues with his journey and making his final huzzah with friends and places around the world he wants to spend time with/in before he goes.
I can't recommend this enough... soooo much love I haz to give ( )

I was interested to see other people struggled with this. I really enjoyed other books by DBC Pierre, and found parts of this one really perceptive and engaging. The comments on society and in particular capitalism were interesting. However it was hard to follow what was going on as there are several sub plots to keep up with. I am not quite sure what happened at the end but Gabriel seemed to have come through it all and I felt some thing had been achieved! ( )

I tried to read this all of the way through, I truly did--even renewed the damn thing for another three weeks. But I just don't want to waste my time on the second half of the book. There are other books, and this one is preventing me from getting to them.

I've enjoyed Pierre's other books. I'm not sure why this one rubs me the wrong way. I cry "uncle."

On balance, a good book and a good read. I think the memory of it will stay and it's a book I'm happy to have read. my only downside (but still recommend to read) would be stylistic issues - the ending fizzled to an near incomprehensible abstract exchange right after a huge climax, the footnotes were often interesting but distracting and occassionaly it felt like reading two books at once.
that said, the themes and exploration of excess were top notch. ( )