Less Than Zero

Reading this in my mid to late thirties hit very different then when I first read it in my early twenties. When I first read this 15+ years ago it felt “real” and “raw” and gave me a sense of comfort and understanding that I was not alone in feeling lost in a world that seemed too big for me. I hadn't read it since and certainly the details were fuzzy, I barely remembered the details, only a feeling. I'm not sure if it's just ageing or finally finding a place in this big world, but reading this again I found it extremely difficult to connect with any of the characters notably the main character Clay. He finds himself in increasingly darker situations, including drug and alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, trafficking of underage girls and boys, snuff movies, prostitution and more. Maybe that's the point though, no one should be comfortable with what happens in this book. I know the world is very different in 2022 than it was in 1985 when the novel was released, but it's extremely hard to imagine someone going through all of these horrible situations with so many other people with little to no regard for the victims in these situations. That to me was the hardest part, the book describes horrible and traumatizing events to many unnamed characters with seemingly zero regard for them. Clay states eventually he doesn't care about anything because he doesn't want to have to feel anything. I'm just not sure that's good enough anymore.