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Ruby and the Stone Age Diet
"From now on," Ruby says to her friend, the narrator, "We’re going on the Stone Age diet. It means we only eat the sort of healthy things our ancestors would have eaten. Raw grains and fruits and stuff like that. That’s what our bodies are made for." An admirable plan, but Ruby never eats, and the narrator’s attention span doesn’t lend itself to routine...more
Paperback, 160 pages
Published
December 15th 2009
by Soft Skull Press
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Mariel
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stone them!
I was so depressed after finishing this book that I could not sleep. I feel sorry for whoever wrote the book blurb for the new edition. A great tale of beautiful saving powers of friendship it is definitely not. It'd be great if one could reach into a story and make things less sad. I felt abandoned. That blurb is brutalizing and misleading. Although, if I could make things better and save a fictional character, it probably wouldn't be this one. The narrator wasn't dear to my heart. He lets thin...more
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Okay, so this story didn't put a smile on face like "The Good Fairies of New York" or like the fabulous "Lux the Poet". This story was published like way way way back when, and has only recently been republished or at least in the US republished now in light of Martin Millar's popularity. That being said, I don't regret buying the book or reading it.
This story didn't have the level of humor or sophistication that his later works have. But then again, I think t...more
This story didn't have the level of humor or sophistication that his later works have. But then again, I think t...more
"Some people do easy jobs and earn huge amounts of money. I do dreadful jobs and am always poorly paid. I am not quite sure why this is. Maybe I didn’t pay enough attention at school."
So when I was picking up Serendipity Market at the library based on its cover, I also picked up Ruby and the Stone Age Diet by Martin Millar without reading the back cover- it mostly was covered with a barcode anyway. And I mean- doesn't it look cool? Unfortunately the book doesn't live up t...more
So when I was picking up Serendipity Market at the library based on its cover, I also picked up Ruby and the Stone Age Diet by Martin Millar without reading the back cover- it mostly was covered with a barcode anyway. And I mean- doesn't it look cool? Unfortunately the book doesn't live up t...more
While it turned out to be an interesting read, I think I went into this book the wrong way. I was expecting a linear story, with rising and falling action. While this book does have some semblance of a plot, it is more the drifting experiences of the main character. It is a story both surreal and mundane, where fantasy sometimes bleeds into reality, and is not always noticed by the characters. There are stories within stories. A good read if one is looking for a drifty book full of occurren...more
This is perhaps the characteristic Martin Millar tale: it stars (and is narrated by) a young man with a tenuous grasp on reality and chronology who has just lost his girlfriend, and whose friend—and squatting buddy—Ruby occasionally likes to slip LSD in his tea, regale him with stories of a lonely werewolf girl, and swear off food for weeks at a time. In Ruby and the Stone-age Diet, Millar has assembled a fractured mosaic of fact, near-fact, fancy and myth that confuses and delights in equal me...more
I barely made it to the halfway point in this book before I had to put it down and walk away. I'm all for weird books and writing techniques, but this one was just too over the top for me. I'm not sure if there is ever a coherent plot, because the lack of a coherent plot by halfway through was what finally convinced me to put the book down.
I loved Good Fairies of New York, and I'm looking forward to finally reading Lonely Werewolf Girl, but I just couldn't get into this particular Mi...more
I loved Good Fairies of New York, and I'm looking forward to finally reading Lonely Werewolf Girl, but I just couldn't get into this particular Mi...more
I've generally really enjoyed Martin Millar as an author, my favorites of his being The Good Fairies of New York and Lonely Werewolf Girl. This one, was not my favorite. It was a super short read but it took me awhile to get through. I had difficulty accepting the characters in the book as actual people and not figments of some untold character's imagination. There were other parts that were vile without any real need for them to be. Still planning on reading more from him but this was not my fa...more
Almost put this book down after the first page annoyed me mightily, but it's a short book so I kept going and am glad I did. Our narrator's style is odd and choppy, and he immediately seems a bit off, a bit unable to fend for himself, and not in a way that made me particularly excited to find out more about him, but he and his fecklessness grew on me, as did Ruby's lonely-werewolf-girl stories.
The simple sentences of a young, broke man's stream of consciousness as he hovers about London or a similar dreary city of the eighties, living in squats or cheap flats, working temp jobs, and hanging out with his friend Ruby.
His girlfriend leaves him, but gives him a cactus. He's abducted by aliens, he says. Ruby produces excerpts from her story about the werewolf girl. They see a friend, get another job, try to get a band going.
Craziness, really, as the unreliable nar...more
His girlfriend leaves him, but gives him a cactus. He's abducted by aliens, he says. Ruby produces excerpts from her story about the werewolf girl. They see a friend, get another job, try to get a band going.
Craziness, really, as the unreliable nar...more
I enjoyed Ruby and the Stone Age Diet but other Millar books I have enjoyed much more. Similar themes as Lonely Werewolf Girl and indeed, includes a mini werewolf story written by one of the characters about Cynthia the Werewolf. A novel of growing up, life, disappointment in love, and strange hallucinations.
Not my favorite of Millar's work -- that would be "Good Fairies of New York" or "Lonely Werewolf Girl" -- but I have to admit, Millar always has a unique turn of phrase and a reading style you can't help but get immersed in.
The first book of Millar's work that I've dabbled in and felt the characters lacked enough development to ultimately render them inconsequential, the story without much flow. Millar does a fine job of capturing the voice of the narrator, however. I would still give some of this other work a chance, though.
I've found that Millar's books are really very hit-or-miss with me. Sometimes I really love the punky quirkiness, but other times it results in nothing but a big mess. This was one of the messy ones.
The characters are both over the top and unbelievable and completely true in their self-absorption and ability to miss the point.
I loved this book. The many stories within the story were my favorite. I especially loved the prototype lonely werewolf girl.
Not my favorite, but worth reading for the story of the lonely werewolf girl (get it? get it? yeah, I got it), which contains some gems about country music and howling at the moon.
what an odd little book. entertaining, though.
Millar's grasp of the foibles of urban youth alt-punk-like existences is fabulous, and stories just silly enough for us to pretend that we haven't been these people. Entertaining, and just a wee bit poignant.
The greatest book I've read in years: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-8359-...
I am sorry Martin Millar, I love you but I just could not get through this book and I have been trying to finish it for months...
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Martin Millar is a critically acclaimed Scottish writer from Glasgow, now resident in London. He also writes the Thraxas series of fantasy novels under the pseudonym Martin Scott.
The novels he writes as Martin Millar dwell on urban decay and British sub-cultures, and the impact this has on a range of characters, both realistic and supernatural. There are elements of magical realism, an...more
More about Martin Millar...
The novels he writes as Martin Millar dwell on urban decay and British sub-cultures, and the impact this has on a range of characters, both realistic and supernatural. There are elements of magical realism, an...more
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“I sit and feel lonely. Sitting and feeling lonely is something I am a spectacular success at. I can do it for hours. Everyone is good at something.”
—
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