100 Books in 2018

3/ the wasp factory by ian banks

read: 05.01.18 - 07.01.18

book: The Wasp Factory

author: Ian Banks

blurb: 'Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim.

That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again.

It was just a stage I was going through.'

review: I picked this book up on a whim a few months ago, and never thought much of it till I began seeing it in those 'top 100 books to read before you die' type lists and decided to see what all the fuss was about.

Overall, I thought this was a good book. Not life-changing, nothing that's going to have me questioning life on a daily basis, but still a decent read. The premise of this book and the actual plot are really interesting, and the writing is really superb. But overall, something about it was just... meh.

Maybe the sadist in me wishes that there was more emphasis on the aspects of the book that were the darkest: the Wasp Factory itself, Eric's actions etc. I also wasn't so keen on the 'plot twist' at the end, it just felt really random and like it had been thrown in there for dramatic effect.

rating: 7.5/10