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urlphantomhive's review against another edition
1.0
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I'm sorry. I didn't like it.
I'd previously read How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers, and while it failed to deliver on the premise of its name, it was a nice enough read that I wanted to read Toxicity, too. Toxicity however, was toxic.
I feel like I have lost over the last two years the enjoyment in the extreme bizarre, hardly fitted together kind of novel. This one was one of those. It features a lot of different POVs and characters, and of course everything is going to fit in together at the end but it is the way how they get there and that was just not really there. None of the characters were even in the least likeable and I didn't like the raw writing in this one.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
I'm sorry. I didn't like it.
I'd previously read How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers, and while it failed to deliver on the premise of its name, it was a nice enough read that I wanted to read Toxicity, too. Toxicity however, was toxic.
I feel like I have lost over the last two years the enjoyment in the extreme bizarre, hardly fitted together kind of novel. This one was one of those. It features a lot of different POVs and characters, and of course everything is going to fit in together at the end but it is the way how they get there and that was just not really there. None of the characters were even in the least likeable and I didn't like the raw writing in this one.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
kitpower's review
4.0
Toxiciy is Dark. Toxicity is twisted. At times, Toxicity is hilarious, without ever failing to be dark and twisted.
Toxicity is part jet black shaggy-dog story, part 'True Romance'-style dark love tale, part diary of hallucinogenic psychosis. It's not quite full Gonzo, but the ghost of Dr. Thompson definitely lurks at the edges of the page from time to time.
Toxicity has a lot going on.
As the title suggests, it's a cocktail that invites unease, if not nausea. The elements noted above may not seem like a smooth fit, and there's a good reason for that - they ain't. It's an uneasy, unnerving, and occasionally uneven ride, but it also contains breakneck pacing and some deft characterizations. Booth III appears to understand the basic truth that farce and tragedy actually the same genre, and he uses the shifting lenses of the different lead characters to give us both versions of that genre. The effect is unsettling, often jarring, and compelling in equal measure, as the characters dance around each other, building to a climax that felt both unpredictable and inevitable - a neat trick.
Some of the bleakness was too much for me, and occasionally the genre and tone shifts threatened emotional whiplash, but I have to give credit to the author for being willing to risk that in pursuit of a very ambitious story that, for the most part, manages to be by turns emotionally engaging and laugh-out-loud funny.
Yeah, Max, I dug it. Good work, man.
Toxicity is part jet black shaggy-dog story, part 'True Romance'-style dark love tale, part diary of hallucinogenic psychosis. It's not quite full Gonzo, but the ghost of Dr. Thompson definitely lurks at the edges of the page from time to time.
Toxicity has a lot going on.
As the title suggests, it's a cocktail that invites unease, if not nausea. The elements noted above may not seem like a smooth fit, and there's a good reason for that - they ain't. It's an uneasy, unnerving, and occasionally uneven ride, but it also contains breakneck pacing and some deft characterizations. Booth III appears to understand the basic truth that farce and tragedy actually the same genre, and he uses the shifting lenses of the different lead characters to give us both versions of that genre. The effect is unsettling, often jarring, and compelling in equal measure, as the characters dance around each other, building to a climax that felt both unpredictable and inevitable - a neat trick.
Some of the bleakness was too much for me, and occasionally the genre and tone shifts threatened emotional whiplash, but I have to give credit to the author for being willing to risk that in pursuit of a very ambitious story that, for the most part, manages to be by turns emotionally engaging and laugh-out-loud funny.
Yeah, Max, I dug it. Good work, man.
craigwallwork's review
4.0
Misfits, mayhem and Zooey Deschanel. Max Booth III's foray into the underbelly of life is like being sucker-punched by Tarantino. He offers a world where Desperation is is more than a state of despair, Jesus is a housefly determined to begin an apocalypse, and greed is a skewer that pierces the heart of the dammed.
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