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Reading:

The Spartacus War - Barry Strauss
Slow Death - Jim Fielder
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon

Interesting. I had the exact opposite reaction to Adams than you did.

I didn't find LGPATA' exploitative at all. I found it almost clinical. IMO it was a pretty convincing examination of evil and the roots of evil. How was it exploitative TT? It was horrific and it made me really identify with Barbara and what she was going through. When they talked about the rape and the violence Barbara experienced the writer really didn't describe the actual act in great detail but instead described what the perpetrator and perpetrated were going through psychologically. It was such an effective technique I would say that the characters of Paul and Dianne are two of the most disturbing and evil characters ever created in horror fiction.

I would hazard to guess that the other reason you had the reactions you did to Adams and Prodigal Blues is that despite the content of the story PB actually had a lot of humour in it. Adams was completely without humour. It was bleak and unrelenting and as you mentioned there is no catharsis at the end. I felt awful at the end but the novel has haunted me for days afterward and that is a sign of a great novel.

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Reading:

The Spartacus War - Barry Strauss
Slow Death - Jim Fielder
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon

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"There's no law, no law anymore - I wanna steal from the rich and give to the poor."
~The Ramones~

I haven't smoked weed since I was about 18 and had a bad trip. My heart started racing and I started running in circles around a car. I felt that if I stopped running around the car I would die of a heart attack. That was it for me.

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"You know. For kids!"

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"You know. For kids!"