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A review by fullmooneaters
Crash by J.G. Ballard
3.0
Oh man. I was so into this book at first. I love weird people, weird situations, weird fixations, etc. These people are aroused by car crashes, I mean, that’s a little unheard of, right? And I was so excited to explore that. It was so intriguing for me. And I blew through the first half, my eyes glued to the pages, face sparkling, I mean, you could probably hit me in the head with a plank and I’d be like “sorry I’m reading Crash, try again later”.
Then, halfway though, something clicked. I was like, dude get this over with already. They like car crashes, they like sex, I know. I’m sick of the sex scenes, sick of the car crashes, I’m sick of these characters, sick of it all. The last half was a slog to get though once the allure of such a unique story wore off. I read some other peoples reviews when I was about a quarter of the way though, and I was like “how do people NOT like this? I’m so into this, it’s so crazy, so off the wall, I love this wild, abstract book.”
Then halfway though it hit and I understood. I was so done. So so done. I read to about 3/4s of the way though, and powered though another few pages, then once I hit about 30 pages before the end, I skimmed it because I just didn’t care anymore. I wanted it to be over. I wanted to take that bookmark out and put this book back on my shelf so its unfinished state could stop mocking me.
Every time I thought about reading it, I’d come up with every other reason in the world not to finish it. Well I finally did it today, and it wasn’t worth it.
It could’ve been good if the length was halved. Stories like this work in short bursts. It doesn’t help that it was like 75% sex scenes, but they weren’t even, I don’t know, titillating? They felt like if you tried to get a machine to write sex scenes, which I guess is a nice touch considering cars are kinda like unfeeling machines so idk maybe I’m not intelligent enough to grasp the nuance or something.
3/5 for missed potential.
(Just now noticing it took me almost 3 months to finish, wow. I never do that)
Then, halfway though, something clicked. I was like, dude get this over with already. They like car crashes, they like sex, I know. I’m sick of the sex scenes, sick of the car crashes, I’m sick of these characters, sick of it all. The last half was a slog to get though once the allure of such a unique story wore off. I read some other peoples reviews when I was about a quarter of the way though, and I was like “how do people NOT like this? I’m so into this, it’s so crazy, so off the wall, I love this wild, abstract book.”
Then halfway though it hit and I understood. I was so done. So so done. I read to about 3/4s of the way though, and powered though another few pages, then once I hit about 30 pages before the end, I skimmed it because I just didn’t care anymore. I wanted it to be over. I wanted to take that bookmark out and put this book back on my shelf so its unfinished state could stop mocking me.
Every time I thought about reading it, I’d come up with every other reason in the world not to finish it. Well I finally did it today, and it wasn’t worth it.
It could’ve been good if the length was halved. Stories like this work in short bursts. It doesn’t help that it was like 75% sex scenes, but they weren’t even, I don’t know, titillating? They felt like if you tried to get a machine to write sex scenes, which I guess is a nice touch considering cars are kinda like unfeeling machines so idk maybe I’m not intelligent enough to grasp the nuance or something.
3/5 for missed potential.
(Just now noticing it took me almost 3 months to finish, wow. I never do that)