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dantastic's review against another edition
3.0
On the way home from work late at night, Jamie and Moses hit a lion, nearly totaling Jamie's car. Moses comes home to find his mother missing and wanders the bleak Ontario town of Larkhill looking for her. Meanwhile, Jamie finds himself homeless and discovers a body in waste can at work...
Waste is one gritty read, the tale of two losers and their respective circles of friends in Larkhill, a dying city of filthy hotels and abandoned buildings. An undercurrent of hopelessness runs through it, making it seem like a much longer book than it is.
The dead lion turns out to be incidental, although it does bind the fates of co-workers Jamie and Moses. Jamie has a daughter with a former co-worker but little else. Moses has a circle of wannabe skinhead friends and a brain-damaged mother, former bowling champion Elvira. Throw in a couple brothers with ZZ Top beards and a power drill fetish, a drug dealer named The Lorax, and the lion's cancer-ridden owner, and Waste becomes a powerful stew of violence and despair.
The book jumps back and forth in time, showing Jamie and Moses as kids before returning to their present predicaments. Poor Connor Condom! The first half or so of the book moves really slowly and I contemplated shelving it. However, the second half was a page-turner and was almost strong enough to lift the book up to four stars.
This isn't a book with a lot of likable characters. Everyone seemed coated in blood and shit by the end. Jamie's boss was the only one that seemed like a good guy but he was probably hiding something hideous under his benign veneer, like virgin snow covering up a thousand carcasses.
Sullivan's writing was right on. I felt grimy reading part of this and he has a great eye for detail. I felt pretty tired by the end of the book.
Waste is one brutal read, part [a:Donald Ray Pollock|784866|Donald Ray Pollock|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1240540889p2/784866.jpg], part [b:Trainspotting|135836|Trainspotting|Irvine Welsh|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1353033083s/135836.jpg|1087421]. Three out of five stars.
Waste is one gritty read, the tale of two losers and their respective circles of friends in Larkhill, a dying city of filthy hotels and abandoned buildings. An undercurrent of hopelessness runs through it, making it seem like a much longer book than it is.
The dead lion turns out to be incidental, although it does bind the fates of co-workers Jamie and Moses. Jamie has a daughter with a former co-worker but little else. Moses has a circle of wannabe skinhead friends and a brain-damaged mother, former bowling champion Elvira. Throw in a couple brothers with ZZ Top beards and a power drill fetish, a drug dealer named The Lorax, and the lion's cancer-ridden owner, and Waste becomes a powerful stew of violence and despair.
The book jumps back and forth in time, showing Jamie and Moses as kids before returning to their present predicaments. Poor Connor Condom! The first half or so of the book moves really slowly and I contemplated shelving it. However, the second half was a page-turner and was almost strong enough to lift the book up to four stars.
This isn't a book with a lot of likable characters. Everyone seemed coated in blood and shit by the end. Jamie's boss was the only one that seemed like a good guy but he was probably hiding something hideous under his benign veneer, like virgin snow covering up a thousand carcasses.
Sullivan's writing was right on. I felt grimy reading part of this and he has a great eye for detail. I felt pretty tired by the end of the book.
Waste is one brutal read, part [a:Donald Ray Pollock|784866|Donald Ray Pollock|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1240540889p2/784866.jpg], part [b:Trainspotting|135836|Trainspotting|Irvine Welsh|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1353033083s/135836.jpg|1087421]. Three out of five stars.
amn028's review against another edition
4.0
The writing narrative for this book was great. It is one of the better debuts of a Canadian author that I have read in some time. The characters were interesting, the story was engaging and there was lovely undercurrent of wackiness. The violence, while present, wasn't as graphic as I thought it would be after reading the author's interview on CBC Books. However, I did still grab my knee caps more than once during the reading.
jo_in_bookland's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This book was quite something. It it noir fiction set in a city in Ontario facing economic struggles.
A group of young friends, including wannabe skinheads seem to have lost their way and get involved in a chain of mishaps and violence.
The novel is very bleak and the characters all unlikeable. Even though the story is very slow-paced, it has very dark and intense moments. Lots of trigger warnings here, including animal cruelty.
I also found the book quite bizarre, both in its content and its writing style. Some characters get randomly introduced and you figure out later who they are. The writing also melds past and present, often from one sentence to the next.
I almost gave up on it because I wasn't getting on with the writing style. It did have some very nice passages and the bizareness made for an interesting read so that made me push on.
I think this book would work well for the right reader.
A group of young friends, including wannabe skinheads seem to have lost their way and get involved in a chain of mishaps and violence.
The novel is very bleak and the characters all unlikeable. Even though the story is very slow-paced, it has very dark and intense moments. Lots of trigger warnings here, including animal cruelty.
I also found the book quite bizarre, both in its content and its writing style. Some characters get randomly introduced and you figure out later who they are. The writing also melds past and present, often from one sentence to the next.
I almost gave up on it because I wasn't getting on with the writing style. It did have some very nice passages and the bizareness made for an interesting read so that made me push on.
I think this book would work well for the right reader.
dessa's review against another edition
3.0
I thought this novel was going to be whimsical. It was not, in fact, whimsical. In fact, it was very dark: the citizens of small-town Ontario finding new ways of hating one another, of spitting venom at the world in general, in tearing apart themselves and their families by force, by a series of ever-evolving and ever-novel forces. The reader sees potential and goodness glimmering in almost every character, way down at the bottom of the well. But ultimately that potential never comes to anything - and we return to the title of the book in a refrain of mourning: what a waste, what a waste, what a waste.
stevendedalus's review against another edition
4.0
Jesus this is the bleakest thing I've ever read. Set in a fictional Oshawa in the late eighties, it follows a bunch of wrecks of white trash people as they muddle through their wasted lives in a wasted city with violence and gore and black, black comedy.
It's a deep-dive into the wreck of the industrial suburb. Bad things just continually happen, awful coincidences bring people together, and it ends badly for most. It's a helluva microcosm to throw on the page and I can't say it's a particularly pleasant read, but it's very effective at what it's going for which is to convince you of the hopelessness that suffocates a town once it's forgotten by the economy and society in general.
Sullivan is a very talented writer, which makes the continued assault on light and good at least somewhat bearable. Though it also makes the grotesquerie that much more effective.
I don't think I've ever read anything quite like this. It's short on descriptions of the young, white, male protagonists, giving them them that everyman, faceless thing. Its story is discombobulated and only fits together at the end in, what else, a bloodbath. It's just unrelenting and hard and unique and I don't really want to reread it but I'm glad I got through it nonetheless.
It's a deep-dive into the wreck of the industrial suburb. Bad things just continually happen, awful coincidences bring people together, and it ends badly for most. It's a helluva microcosm to throw on the page and I can't say it's a particularly pleasant read, but it's very effective at what it's going for which is to convince you of the hopelessness that suffocates a town once it's forgotten by the economy and society in general.
Sullivan is a very talented writer, which makes the continued assault on light and good at least somewhat bearable. Though it also makes the grotesquerie that much more effective.
I don't think I've ever read anything quite like this. It's short on descriptions of the young, white, male protagonists, giving them them that everyman, faceless thing. Its story is discombobulated and only fits together at the end in, what else, a bloodbath. It's just unrelenting and hard and unique and I don't really want to reread it but I'm glad I got through it nonetheless.
toasty's review
4.0
unbelievably dark. i thought i knew what i was getting into after the first chapter, but i was very wrong. the story is second tier to the characters, because that's what the majority of this book is: character studies on these fucked up people in this fucked up town. even the side characters get chapters in their own povs, which is confusing at times and brilliant at others. i really enjoyed this, but parts made me feel sick while i was reading, because there isn't even the smallest sliver of good in any of these people or their actions. would recommend for people who don't mind nonlinear, wandering stories.
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