Pimp: The Story of My Life

Kept trying to like this book but found it too stylised and boring. It's like a pimp comic book. Very graphic, lots of metaphors and descriptive language. Vivid storytelling. But somehow I just never got sucked into this one, seemed like more of a chore to read it. Ultimately only got like 15% through it over 3 months or so and now it's time to give up.

In fiction, an unreliable narrator is a fun twist that makes you think twice about what you just read, and reanalyze it through that lens. In an autobiography it makes it awfully hard to maintain your suspension of disbelief. Iceberg makes a lot of claims that are hard to swallow. For example, quoting the lyrics to whatever song was on the radio at the time—which are always thematic to the plot. Every character in the book talks in his voice; even supposed squares routinely refer to all women as “bitches” and talk in jive. As such, I decided to read the rest of the book in the frame of mind that it's fiction.

And as fiction, it's actually not that bad. I mean, it is—if it were published as fiction it wouldn't have been published. But it's interesting. It's not a story you've heard before. It's told by a disgusting, terrible human of an antihero, but I sorta found myself rooting for him anyway. It presents a view of the world I'd never seen inside of: that everyone is fundamentally out to get you, that loneliness is the only possible way to live, and that if you don't outsmart everyone all the time they'll outsmart you. Honestly it sounds like a pretty terrible life, but a lot of the intrigue is watching someone strive so hard for such vapidness.

If you're looking for something different and aren't going to be triggered by the protagonist being proud of himself for having beaten a woman with an unraveled coathanger, you might give this a go. It's by no means a great use of your time, but at the very least you'll pick up some cool pimp lingo.