i felt so sleazy reading this lol

I get what Cooper was going for. I really do

and yet!

Ultimately it was disappointing. the format was not my favorite. the ending was not the best. i enjoyed the gritty gore in theory, but it felt like there was no real means to the end?

idk. sexual gore, sure. body horror, love that. the constant pedophilia thing was a bit much. go write in your journal about how into little boys you are instead of putting it in your book



there were things i did enjoy about this read. i love 2000s forums where people are lying for fun. and i do see deeper messages at play below the surface level style.

also- the P.O. box thing just feels so disjointed from everything else. i know that there are blurred lines, but i wanted some answers with that ( )

Cooper writes about the intersection of sex and violence. This novel, mostly told through anonymous message boards provides a slew of unreliable narrators. While Cooper is often labeled as a transgressive writer, I really believe he transcends such labels, and it would be reductionist to say that his novels are transgressive. I find them wrapped in so many layers of honesty that isn't always present in the works of other transgressive writers. Highly recommended unless you have a low tolerance for sadism. ( )

The book has two really special features that made me love it.

(1) The whole thing, narration wise, is a series of forum posts and emails. There is no outside narration or dialogue. I had always imagined something like this could be done, like a book built on texts or social media for example, but had thought it was just too difficult to pull off without it being corny and destined to become heavily outdated. The Sluts really pulls it off with grace by not trivializing the medium (not playing it as a joke or ironic or silly), and somehow barely feeling outdated at all, years later.

(2) I loved the way truth and fact were never certainties; instead they were always being distorted and reframed to show entirely new perspectives. I see why people say it was Borgesian, but it reminded me most of Italo Calvino’s “If on a winter’s night a traveler…” The book’s plot was essentially a captivating whodunnit without any resolutions, or at least without any resolutions that stood for more than a few pages. It seems like really sharp commentary to present truth and fact conveyed digitally as so inaccessible and unbelievable, whether you’re in extremely niche communities (like the ones in this book) or on the front page of Reddit. It really rings true to my own browsing to never fully feel like I can believe anything I read on the internet. I guess that’s true in real life too, to some extent.

Anyways yes I am comfortably giving this 5 stars. The only thing I have to say is that it is extremely graphic and gory, highly disturbing content. Probably American Psycho or Less Than Zero level or slightly worse.

Thanks to Angie Dutton, who I do not actually know but is my friend on this app, who either recommended the book to me or left a review that convinced me to read it. ( )

The time I read this book was quite haunted, only adding to the general content of the book. I had quit my job and spent most of my savings flying out to California because a friend had told me he 100% had work lined up for me trimming weed. We met up in LA and before heading north to the emerald triangle we went to his friends house. It turned out to be some one I have many mutuals with through Chicago. A total anarcho worm. Any ways she gave us both adderall and cbd and all that good stuff, but soon my friend and she went to their room to hook up while I had to just chill and go to sleep on the couch in the living room. She recommend I read this book, so I read the whole thing that night while the two continued to bang loudly in the room over. I don't often read books in one setting, but I also rarely take adderall. Also it was the night before my birthday and I told no one. The story itself? Well it deserves applause for it's unique structure consisting of forum posts from a wide arrange of people. A mixture of speculation, fabrication and truth. A faulty narrative in which you have to decide what is true and what not, all the while filled with quite perverse subject matter. All in all a dirty hoot. ( )

if Borges took on Rashomon, but instead of the action happening in a grove, it went down on a message board dedicated to reviewing homosexual escorts ( )