The Shards

I'm confused and conflicted about this one.
Aside from being a considerably long book, it's hazy, redundant, morally reprehensible in every which way and strangely anticlimactic. Yet, despite all this, it's good. Very good.

What I enjoyed the most, I was delighted to discover, was something the author himself ended up mentioning in the brief conclusive chapter: his incredible ability to give a believable account of what being a teenager feels like, pristine and unadulterated as if forty years hadn't gone by.

There are many things in this book that I did not enjoy as I was reading it, but whichever way I try to look at it, they all end up becoming essential elements to this daunting tale of manic unraveling.

I have to say, though, as someone who has yet to visit California, I found myself often scoffing in impatience at the constant mentioning of roads and boroughs of L.A.
I was reminded of the SNL ‘Californians' sketch, where the cast pokes fun at Angelenos because they only seem to talk about traffic. Because of this, I feel like I sometimes took the book less seriously than it wanted to be.