Joe's review
The Basic Eight: A Novel by Daniel Handler
The first couple hundred pages indicate that this is a satire of teenage angst and true-crime tabloid sensation that's even smarter, funnier, darker and more subversive than "Heathers" or "To Die For." Then it seems like a hackneyed twist is being foreshadowed. "No!" the reader's inner voice may cry. "The foreshadowing of a hackneyed twist like that in such a clever, subversive novel must certainly be a red herring! After all, this is the brilliant author behind Lemony Snicket!" But alas, there is no further twist, just a needlessly complicated but easily predictable end. In spite of this, the book is worth reading for Handler's style alone. This guy could write about a trip to the grocery store and still evoke Nabokov's mind games, Roald Dahl's wicked humor, and his own brand of beautiful, unsentimental pathos.
