Crash

This is not the kind of book that one can really enjoy reading, in the same way its hard to really enjoy American Psycho at points. Unless you're a very sadistic, damaged person. The prose style of Crash is very dense and complex, it is not something you pick up casually. And as for its content, I myself am a little desensitized, but like American Psycho, the constant talk of extravagant, gory injuries and various bodily excretions just gets exhausting after a while. Nonetheless, the underlying philosophy - the connection between man and machine, carnage and sexuality - is extremely fascinating. I don't claim to understand it - I didn't entirely understand the movie, though I still consider it one of my favorites - but for that it was worth the read.

Listening to this audiobook while driving really feels like tempting fate...

Went through ups and downs in my opinion of this–at first I was fascinated and dazzled by its novelty, then I grew annoyed with the repetition of phrases, but then I circled back and appreciated it as a textural, atmospheric piece of writing.

This is the most horrible book I have ever read (and I have a high tolerance for weird shit, with Naked Lunch being up there on my reading list) and if I didn't have to read it for a course I would have quit a quarter of the way in.

I can't give it a rating. Ballard knew exactly what he was doing and executed it well. It's just that what he was doing was holding up a warped wing mirror and showing the very worst of an alienated, superficial, soulless and pornographic humanity. By the end of the book I was exhausted from the endless onslaught of atrocity. There are no redeeming aspects; the sex in this book is not fun, sensual, or affectionate but rather the repetitive hollow actions of an addict. It left a vile taste in my brain.