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Book Review of Permanent Obscurity: Or a Cautionary Tale of Two Girls and Their Misadventures with Drugs, Pornography and Death

reviewed on
Helpful Score: 2


Wow, this book was really entertaining! I'm glad I purchased it -- after Amazon recommended it to me based on my shopping history. Essentially its a tabloid story of two mixed up East Village artists -- or wannabe artists -- who fall in way over their heads. Whats to blame? Drugs. It seems theyve pissed off one to many people with unpaid tabs and now they find themselves in deeper and deeper hot water. They set out to make a female domination movie that will pay back their debt, but these two characters cant seem to do a single thing right -- so just guess how that turns out! And just when you think things cant get any worse -- guess what? They do!

The way the author builds the tension and layers the story is impressive. What makes the book so much fun to read is the vulgar protagonist, Dolores. Shes a mixed up, impulsive, foul-mouthed loose cannon; but her friend Serena may even be worse. Going to the authors website mentioned in the back of the book -- I can see the references to Thelma & Louise and other bad girl movies, like Heavenly Creatures.

Its a big novel -- around 450 pages -- but it reads super fast, and this is largely to do with the writing, which is very simple and reminiscent of the gritty writings of Charles Bukowski. The characters are really well drawn too. And the behavior of these characters is unexpected and pretty wild.

So this book is highly recommended. I just finished it and I already feel like reading parts of it again. A+

Other recent books I recommend? Post Office by Charles Bukowski and The Fuck-Up by Arthur Nersessian.